Olivia Land
The American woman who was found chained to a tree in India has admitted that she locked the shackles herself.
Lalita Kayi Kumar, 50, was found last month chained to a tree in the jungle in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. She was filthy and severely emaciated.
After several days of treatment in a psychiatric facility, Kumar admitted to authorities that she actually tied herself up – and was probably hallucinating when she presented investigators with a sinister note that claimed her husband abandoned her to die, the BBC reported.
Kumar said she was not married, and that she chained herself to the tree because she was upset over her Visa expiring and her dwindling cash resources.
Kumar was too weak to speak when she was first found, and had given the police a handwritten note that accused her supposed spouse of leaving her without food or water for 40 days.
Nearly two weeks after she was rescued, Kumar’s condition “is improving,” said Dr Sanghamitra Phule, the superintendent of the psychiatric hospital where she is being treated.
“She eats, walks and also exercises. She is under treatment and we are also giving her some nutrients that her body was lacking,” he explained.
Kumar’s family in the US had also been located, and she was in touch with them over the phone, he added.
Kumar is believed to have moved to India around 10 years ago to study yoga, earlier reports indicated.
She was found in the jungle by a shepherd who heard her cries for help.
“The sound was coming from the forest on the side of the mountain. When I went there, I saw that one of her legs was tied to a tree. She was screaming like an animal. I called other villagers and the local police,” the witness told the BBC.
Police found her with a copy of her US passport, which indicated she was from Massachusetts, and documents that linked her to an address in Tamil Nadu.
Kumar also had a mobile phone, a tablet, and 31,000 rupees, or $370.
The US embassy declined to comment on the case, citing Kumar’s right to privacy.
