Special probe team clueless on missing Latvian woman
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Special Investigation Team probing the case of the Latvian woman who went missing from Kovalam beach on March 14 has hit a roadblock with the investigators unable to secure any leads that could help them track down the 33-year-old. Meanwhile, sources revealed the Latvian government is in touch with the office of the Ministry of External Affairs in a bid to add impetus to the ongoing investigation.
Liga Skromane, who lives in Dublin, arrived in Kerala with her sister Ilze to undergo ayurveda treatment for depression and insomnia on March 3. The SIT was formed 10 days after her disappearance and is supposed to file a report to Kerala High Court in the first week of May after Ilze moved a habeas corpus petition before the court.Attingal DYSP P Anil Kumar, who is part of the SIT, said they haven’t received any positive leads so far and hinted they are groping in the dark.
“Though we had received some information from here and there, nothing proved conclusive,” he said.
Senior police officers said they are feeling ‘pressure’ to enhance the pace of the probe and are getting “queries from the top” regarding the case. A Latvian consulate official from Chennai had visited Ilze earlier and has been assisting her in the handling of the case.Earlier, there were reports of Liga being sighted at Kankanadi railway station.
Based on that, the police had launched a search there and extended it to Gokarna beach and finally up to Goa. It however, yielded no result. Anil said there was no lethargy in the investigation, but the lack of any technical trail made the case difficult to crack.“Since she didn’t use her mobile phone while going to the beach, we have to rely on witness testimonies alone,” he said.
Sources in the Special Investigation team said they have ruled out the chances of forceful disappearance as Kovalam beach is too crowded to commit such a crime. They also discounted the chance of the woman going on her own to some other place as she didn’t have enough money to do so. “She just had `200 left with her, so there is little possibility she moved to another place,” said another officer who is part of the investigation team. The other possibility, as per police, is suicide and there have been instances when bodies get stuck in the crevices of the rocks near the beach and could not be recovered.