Police in Kashmir have arrested a Dutch tourist for allegedly murdering a young British woman who was putting up in a houseboat inside Dal lake for the past two months. The suspected murderer attempted to flee the Valley but was arrested at south Kashmir’s Qazigund town on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.
Police said that 23-year-old Sara Elizabeth was staying in a houseboat at Kohnakhan on the shores of Dal lake. On Saturday morning, the houseboat staff found her dead in the room she had hired for the past two months. The staff immediately contacted the police. The police found a Dutch tourist, De-wit Richard missing from another room of the same houseboat. Richard, 43, had checked in two days before and there is no evidence whether he knew Elizabeth. Police found Richard’s belongings in the room but he had left no message before leaving the room.
As the needle of suspicion pointed towards Richard, police sounded an alert about him. Police said that Richard was the only foreigner who had hired a taxi in the morning. The taxi driver was contacted on his cellphone who helped the police to arrest the fleeing tourist from Qazigund. “A Forensic experts’ team of Srinagar police was deputed for collection of vital clues at the crime scene. The body of the deceased was sent for post mortem”, a police statement said.