On Friday, December 2, the additional sessions court in Thiruvananthapuram will pronounce the verdict in the case of the rape and murder of a Latvian woman that happened in Kovalam four and half years ago. The woman who had come for medical treatment at an Ayurvedic resort in Kovalam, was found murdered in a forest in Thiruvallom in April 2018. Although two people had been arrested initially, they were later released on bail. The victim's partner and her family have been fighting for justice all this while.
The 33-year-old Latvian woman, who lived in Ireland, had reached Thiruvananthapuram in February 2018. She went missing on March 14 that year, after which a police complaint was filed by her sister. Lookout notices were issued by the police and searches conducted, but there was no information about the woman's whereabouts for more than a month. In April 2018, her decomposed and beheaded body was found in a mangrove forest in Thiruvallom, near Kovalam.
Within a month, the police zeroed in on two of the six men they had taken into custody and charged them for sexual assault and murder of the woman. But the two accused – Udayan (27) and Umesh (31) – were later released on bail. In an earlier interview to TNM, the woman's partner rubbished stories that she was lured by the men on the pretext of smoking cannabis. She had always disapproved of drugs, he said. He added that he had been disheartened by the police inaction. Last year, the victim's sister returned home after staying in India for more than three years awaiting justice for her sister.
In the latest development, in June this year Dr Sasikala, former head of forensics at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, deposed before the court that the victim had not died by suicide, and that it was a clear case of homicide.