Kovalam beach near Thiruvananthapuram is arguably the busiest tourist spot in Kerala but the fact is that it took more than a month for the State police to recover the body of latvian woman liga Skromane (33) from a deserted spot just a few kilometers from the beach since she went missing has brought to the fore serious questions about the State Government’s commitment for ensuring safety of the tourists both domestic and foreign.
At the same time, liga’s live-in partner Andrew Jordan and her sister Ilze Skromane have reiterated that there was mystery behind liga’s death and that it was not a case of suicide. Ilze said in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday that there were serious lapses in police’s investigation in the case.
Also, allegations came up on Monday that Kerala’s Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan refused to meet Ilze and Andrew though they had an appointment. A social worker helping them in legal affairs said DGP loknath Behera had shouted at them when they met him and warned them against teaching the police on how to carry out the probe.
The incident has also brought immense disrepute to the Kerala as debates are raging in the national and international tourist circles and media on how the Government had failed in making the State police take prompt action on the complaints lodged about the disappearance of liga by her sister Ilze and Andrew Jordan.
Despite the fact that lakhs of foreign and domestic tourists visit Kovalam every year, the police have so far not considered installing visual surveillance systems anywhere on the beach. There is not even a single CCTV camera on the beach to monitor the movements of tourists and the alleged presence of anti-social elements including drug peddlers in the area.
liga’s decapitated and decomposed body was found on April 20 from the bushes in a deserted area a few kilometers away from Kovalam. The death seemed to have occurred more than a month ago establishing that that liga had died not long after she had gone missing. Kovalam was the place where she was seen last before she went missing on March 14.
“There was every opportunity for the police to get at least some leads on the woman’s disappearance if CCTV surveillance system was in place on the beach and adjacent places,” said a local resident who had helped Ilze and Andrew in their search for liga in Kovalam and around after the police allegedly showed lack of interest in their complaints. Kovalam beach, perhaps the most sought after tourist destination in Kerala, has several narrow and oft-deserted pathways leading out of it. Though there have been several reports about the presence of peddlers of intoxicating stuffs trying to lure tourists into their net, the authorities have so far not bothered to bring these areas under electronic CCTV coverage.
“The police or the Tourism Department has not made any serious security arrangements for the tourists here though the Government is squeezing millions of rupees out of them every season,” said an hotelier in Kovalam. “Whenever there is an incident, the police come to us for CCTV footage. It’s high time they did something about this,” he added.
The area has a police aid post but police personnel are seen there only on rare occasions, according to tourists and local residents. Also, the authorities are not in the habit of deploying adequate number of policemen along the beach even in the peak of tourism season.