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Thiruvananthapuram, December 2
A local court here on Friday convicted two men of raping and murdering a Lithuanian woman tourist who went missing in 2018 from Kovalam near here.
The Thiruvananthapuram Sessions Court convicted the accused Umesh and Udayan under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including rape and murder of the 33-year old Lithuanian tourist, who had gone missing under mysterious circumstances from Kovalam on March 14, 2018.
The accused were found guilty based on circumstantial evidence and the court will pronounce the order on the sentencing on December 5.
"The body was found after 38 days and in a decomposed state due to which we lost a lot of biological evidence but the police were able to build a case based on circumstantial evidence and the prosecution was able to successfully prove it in the court," the prosecutor told the media.
The highly decomposed and headless body of the woman was recovered from a mangrove forest at nearby Thiruvallam on April 21, 2018 and the accused, Umesh and Udayan, were arrested on May 3, 2018.
IG P Prakash, who met the media outside the court complex here, said he was happy to learn about the verdict.
Prakash was the city police commissioner when the incident happened.
"We are happy that we could bring the culprits before justice. There were many issues in the case. The body was found in a decomposed state. It was a challenging case. The locals were not cooperating. The issue was related to a foreign woman. We were able to provide justice to her family," Prakash said.
The accused were charged under Sections 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of the IPC and Section 20(b) of the NDPS Act.
Police had said that the woman was raped and murdered by the two accused, who are drug peddlers, on March 14, the day she went missing.
The accused lured her to the spot saying it was a scenic and beautiful place, made her consume ganja, and then sexually assaulted her and strangled her to death, they said.
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