The partner of a 33-year-old latvian woman who was raped and murdered over three months ago in Kovalam near Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday unleashed scathing criticisms against the State Government and police for the way they had been handling the case and said he was waiting for the outcome of the petition he had filed in the High Court seeking a CBI probe.
Ireland national Andrew Jordan, the murdered woman’s live-in partner told newsmen in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday that the police were trying to close the case file somehow and that the developments Kerala had seen after the woman’s murder were a drama scripted and staged by the State Tourism Department.
Andrew said he had lodged a complaint with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on June 6 seeking a CBI investigation in order to unravel the mysteries shrouding the case. “Having received no response from the Chief Minister’s office, I was left with no option but to approach the High court” for orders for a CBI probe, he told newsmen.
The High Court had on Friday issued notices to the CBI and the State Government on the basis of Andrew’s petition. The police had arrested two accused in the case in early May but they have reportedly retracted their confessional statement and submitted before the court that they had been tortured and forced by the police to give statements as they had wanted.
In the petition, the Irish citizen said the current investigation by the State police was not sufficient to unearth the truth behind the incident. He also requested the court to prevent the police from filing the chargesheet in the case till the disposal of his petition seeking CBI investigation.
The latvian woman, who had come to Kerala with Andrew and her sister for Ayurvedic treatment for depression at a facility in Pothencode, Thiruvananthapuram, had gone missing on March 14. It took 36 days for the Kerala Police to find her body from a marshy place – just three kilometers away from Kovalam – but by that time it had undergone extreme decomposition.
The police arrested two local drug pushers, Umesh and Udayan, for raping and murdering the woman, on May 3 the very day her body was cremated. “Those who have been arrested need not be the actual culprits. The police seem to be very eager to close the case by arraigning some people as accused,” Andrew said.
According to the police, the latvian woman had reached Kovalam beach from Pothencode in an autorikshaw on March 14 and Umesh and Udayan, who had been working as unauthorised tourist guides, lured her into their trap by promising cannabis and help in sightseeing. They took her to the mangrove by a boat where she was raped and killed, they said.
However, Andrew was not prepared to agree with this theory. He pointed out that those arrested — Umesh and Udayan — could not speak English well and that it was unbelievable that his friend had gone with such people. Also, he said, she was not in the habit of freely interacting with unfamiliar people.
Alleging that there was mystery behind the authorities’ decision to hastily cremate the body even after it was found that she had been subjected to rape, Andrew said that Government and the police should have known that cremation of body should be avoided in such situations. “The Tourism Department managed to highjack the memorial service,” he alleged.
Andrew pointed out that an order issued by the State Human Rights Commission against cremating the woman’s body was handed over directly to the State police chief, Director General of Police loknath Behera, on May 3, but he had refused to accept it formally till the cremation was over.
Andrew said there had been several efforts from the part of the Department of Tourism to close the case somehow and the Government had managed to send her sister back home by awarding her Rs 5,00,000 as compensation.
“What was witnessed here was an absurd drama staged jointly by the Government, Tourism department and the police,” he said.