The Kerala police has been accused of apathy by the sister of a deceased Latvian woman, who was recently found dead in the state. The corpse of the Latvian woman speculated to be a 33 year old Liga Skromane was recovered from a riverbank in Kerala’s Thiruvallam, where it was found hanging upside down in the bushes. It was reported that Liga had gone missing from an Ayurvedic clinic on 14 March.
Following this, her heartbroken sister Ilze Skromane identified the body, with the police proceeding to conduct postmortem and DNA tests on the corpse. After the discovery, the police had assumed that Liga had committed suicide, which was disputed by the family. The family in-turn alleged that she was murdered and accused the Kerala police of being lax in pursuing the case.
The sister Ilze accused the Kerala police of carrying out an investigation which wasn’t backed by evidence. She was even quoted as accusing the Kerala police of laughing at them, while they were at the police station:
While at the police station, the policemen were laughing at us. They kept saying she’ll return soon even though I kept saying she has depression and she is vulnerable: Ilze Skromene, sister of the 33-year-old Lithuanian woman who was missing for 1 month in Trivandrum. #Keralapic.twitter.com/xixFJlvGA8
— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2018
Following this, the Kerala police seems to have gone into damage control mode. In the statements released by the police’s communication department’s they claim to have taken all possible steps on the complaint regarding Liga’s disappearance. After recovering the body they claim to have initiated scientific investigation to uncover her cause of death.
They also claimed that a special team comprising of 10 police officials was commissioned to probe the matter, who then searched 245 hotels in Kovalam, questioned 375 people and inspected CCTV footage and call records. They also claimed that the probe was streamlined after Liga’s family met the state police chief.
