Liga Skromane, 33, arrived in Kerala for treatment with her sister in February. Photo / Supplied
Liga Skromane, 33, arrived in Kerala for treatment with her sister in February. Photo / Supplied
A woman who travelled to India to treat her depression was drugged, raped and beheaded before her body was found hung upside down in a forest.
Liga Skromane, 33, who is Latvian but was living in Dublin, Ireland, for the past five years with her partner, arrived in Kerala with her sister in February, reports Daily Mail.
She was hoping to be treated at one of the ayurvedic centres the area is famous for, according to NDTV.
But she went missing a few weeks after arriving in the country after leaving the centre to visit a beach.
Her decomposing body was found near a mangrove forest in Thiruvallam on April 21.
Police revealed on Thursday – the same day her funeral was held in Thiruvananthapuram - that she was lured by two men, who drugged and raped her before killing her.
Two suspects are in custody.
Her decomposing body was found near a mangrove forest in Thiruvallam on April 21. Photo / Supplied
They are drug peddlers and one is a repeat offender with a history of sexually abusing men and women in the area where Ms Skromane's body was found, sources told NDTV.
Police said the victim's post-mortem examination didn't reveal much because of how decomposed her body was.
However, they were able to determine that she was given drugs and assaulted before being strangled to death.
"The victim was lured into this area, given drugs and sexually assaulted. She was murdered when she resisted," officer Manoj Abraham told NDTV.
It comes as two teenagers were gang raped in separate incidents in India in the past four days.
The cases highlight a rape epidemic that shows no sign of abating despite tougher penalties introduced last month.
The victim's sister Ilze and Andrew handed out fliers before her body was found last month. Photo / Supplied
Police said they had not made any arrests in either case.
One victim was a 16-year-old girl who committed suicide after being raped by eight men on Sunday in the Nuh district of the northern state of Haryana, senior police official Nazneen Bhasin told Reuters.
On Tuesday, a 19-year-old woman was raped by five men, including the driver of an autorickshaw she hailed in another district of the same state.
The incidents come less than a month after India approved the death penalty for the rape of girls younger than 12.
They country also increased the prison term for the rape of older girls and women following nationwide disgust over a particularly gruesome rape and murder of a Muslim girl in Jammu & Kashmir state.
Registered cases of sexual violence have been steadily rising despite the national outrage that followed the fatal gang rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012.
