India police rescue American woman chained to tree in jungle who claims husband left her there to die
New Delhi — Police in India found a 50-year-old American woman chained to a tree in a forest in the country's western Maharashtra state, where she claims her Indian husband left her to die. Maharashtra Police told CBS News the woman, identified as Lalita Kayi Kumar, was found in a forest in the Sindhudurg district of the state, about 280 miles south of India's financial capital Mumbai, on Saturday after local shepherds heard her cries for help and alerted authorities.
Photos and videos broadcast by Indian news outlets showed an emaciated-looking woman clad in ragged, loose clothing being assisted by rescuers in the middle of a forest, with one of her legs affixed to a tree with a metal chain.
After rescuing her, police brought Kumar to a hospital in Sindhudurg and she was later transferred to the Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behavior of the Goa Medical College and Hospital. The police said doctors treating her had informed them that she suffers from psychiatric problems but was medically "out of danger."
A video broadcast by India's India Today TV channel showed medics surrounding Kumar on a hospital bed as she wrote a note to communicate her story. In it, she says she is unable to speak and alleges that her husband left her shackled in the jungle to die.
"Injection for extreme psychosis which caused a severely locked jaw and inability to drink any water. Need intravenous food. 40 days without food and water. Husband tied me to a tree in the forest and said I would die there," the note read.
Police recovered a photocopy of Kumar's U.S. passport, an Indian ID and other documents from her possession. They have filed an attempted murder case against her husband, named as Satish, the police inspector in charge of the investigation, Vikas Badave, told CBS News.
"We registered an attempt to murder case on 30th July," Badave said, adding that officers "have very little information about her husband right now."
Badave said the Maharashtra Police had sent a team to Tamil Nadu state, several hundred miles away in southern India, in search of her husband, as the woman's Indian ID references an address there. Police were also trying to find her relatives.
Badave told CBS News on Thursday that officers had been unable to record a formal statement from Kumar as doctors had advised against it thus far.
Dr. Anil Rane, the medical superintendent of a psychiatry institute in Goa, told CBS News that Kumar was transferred back to the hospital in Sindhudurg on Wednesday evening as "her condition had improved," but he declined to share any further information on her treatment or condition due to privacy laws.
The police said they were in contact with the U.S. embassy in India regarding the case, but the embassy declined to comment when asked by CBS News.
Indian news outlet NDTV reported that an expired Indian visa was found on the woman's American passport suggesting she had lived in India for 10 years.
"There is some progress in the investigation," Badave told CBS News, "and we are looking at all possible angles and trying to verify her every claim."