Kerala Police have begun an investigation to trace a German woman tourist, who had come to the state in March, after a complaint from her family that they had not heard from her, a police official said.
Pradeep, a Sub Inspector of Police at the Valiyathura police station, under which the Thiruvananthapuram airport comes, said that police have registered a case and begun their probe.
According to the police, the German Consulate had informed the state police chief of the missing woman, named Liza Vays, 31, after her mother in Germany approached them saying there is no word from her.
Liza arrived at the airport here on March 7 and according to her disclosure in the arrival form, she was to head to the ashram of 'hugging saint' Amrithananda Mayi near Kollam, about 80 km from here.
But the police probe revealed that she has not reached there and she was last seen leaving the airport on a two-wheeler.
The police had got information that her friend Mohammed Ali, a British passport holder, was with her, but also found that he had departed from the Cochin airport on March 15. Based on the mother’s complaint, a Swedish man too had accompanied Liza on her journey to Kerala. The police will also probe if the man had gone back or has been missing. It also said that Liza has converted to Islam back in 2011.
The incident has come a year after the shocking murder of a 33-year-old Latvian woman in Kerala which rocked the state.
The woman had gone missing last March from Kovalam. On April 21, her highly decomposed and behaved body was found from inside the mangrove forest in Thiruvallam.
Investigations in this case are ongoing and two drug peddlers have been arrested by the police.