“The sound was coming from the forest, next to the mountain. When I went there, I saw that he had one of his legs tied to a tree. He was screaming like an animal.”
The Gawkar PlanA cowherd, he was the first to find American ballet teacher Lalita Kayi after she disappeared deep in the forests of India on July 27.
Police found the 50-year-old woman with a mobile phone, a tablet and around £290 (about $370) in local currency on her person.
But she was emaciated, skin and bones from apparent starvation, with leg wounds and suffering from “extreme psychosis.”
She initially told police that her husband had “chained her and left her in the woods to die” without food or water.
Lalita was said to have spent 40 days in a remote forest north of Goa and it seemed a miracle that a shepherd who happened upon the place had found her.
But the strangest revelation came on Tuesday, when police revealed that she had told them she did not, in fact, have a husband and had tied herself to the tree.
Lalita initially told police she had been given drugs that had blocked her jaw.
Police rescued her after a cowherd heard her cries coming from the dense forest.
In a note, he said he had been injected for “extreme psychosis” and had not eaten for 40 days.
Little was initially known about Lalitha Kayi, who was found in a dense forest near Sonurli, a small village of about 1,500 people about 280 miles from Mumbai on July 27.
The police found several documents on her person that offered fragments of clues to identify her.
Her passport shows she is a US citizen from Massachusetts. Other documents indicate she now lives in Tamil Nadu, at the southern tip of the subcontinent.
MailOnline understands that Lalita is a recent graduate of Boston University who studied psychology before working as a freelance dance teacher.
According to police, Lalita was a ballet dancer and yoga practitioner in the United States before moving to India about ten years ago.
They say he left home to study yoga and meditation in Tamil Nadu.
But nothing more has been said about what prompted Lalita to move to the other side of the world.
It is also not known how Lalita claims to have studied in Boston between 2018 and 2022 if she moved to India ten years ago.
Boston University in his native Massachusetts offers a variety of online courses, and this would have been, at least in part, during the pandemic.
Tourists and businesses can apply for visas for a duration of five years to stay in India, although tourists cannot extend their visit.
Business visas can be extended, but Lalita says she has been working as a teacher for less than two years, leaving more questions unanswered.
Then the story gets weird.
Police initially reported that they understood Lalita had been tied to a tree with a band around her leg by her husband, identified in some media reports as a man named Satish.
They said they had to cut down the tree and break the lock to free her from her bonds.
At first Lalita couldn’t speak, she was so exhausted from malnutrition, and everything they knew they learned from her scribbles on a notepad.
She only knew English and could not communicate with them in Hindi or Marathi.
“When we found her, she was severely dehydrated,” said Amol Chavan, an inspector at Sawantwadi police station.
“It appears she was trapped there for at least 48 hours, although she was mute.”
Lalita told police through her notes that her husband had tied her to a tree and left her there without food for 40 days “to die” after a fight.
Police said they found “a raincoat and food” in her bag.
He also claimed he had been given an “extreme psychosis injection” that blocked his jaw and prevented him from drinking water, and that he had to be given nutrition intravenously.
“I am a victim and I survived, but he fled from here,” she told police.
Lalita was found tied to a tree after a cowherd found her crying for help.
Lalita was taken to a psychiatric hospital in India after being found in a remote forest.
She was found chained to a tree and unable to speak, communicating only through notes.
Police later reported that they had not been able to verify these claims and believed it was unlikely that someone could survive without food or water for so long.
As a general rule, humans can last about three days without water and up to three weeks without food.
Police believe Lalita had been “trapped” for at least two days.
During the first five days without eating, a person may lose 1 to 2 kg of body weight each day, largely due to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.
The situation is slowing down over time, but hospital photos show that Lalita is severely malnourished.
She was first taken to a primary health centre in Sindhudurg’s Sawantwadi taluka, where doctors had to administer nutrition to her intravenously.
“The woman is not in a condition to give her statement,” police said at the time.
‘The woman is weak because she has not eaten anything for a couple of days and the area has also experienced heavy rains.
“We don’t know how long she was tied to that tree. Apparently she left her husband after a fight.”
They soon registered a case of attempt to murder against ‘Satish’ and sent teams to his house to investigate.
They hoped the mobile phone and tablet found in his possession might also offer insight into how he ended up in such a terrible state.
But then comes the twist.
On August 6, the police and Lalita’s doctor He told the BBC Now they believed that Lalita had chained herself to the tree, after a confession.
Lalita is now receiving treatment at a psychiatric facility as investigators try to make sense of what happened.
But about ten days after she was found, police revealed that she had retracted her original story, telling them she was not even married.
Saurabh Agarwal, superintendent of police in Sindhudurg, told the broadcaster that they believed he was probably suffering from hallucinations when he gave his first statement.
It was not clear what he may have taken or what police had given him.
She had claimed she had been given medication for extreme psychosis before admitting her husband was a fabrication.
It was not clear whether or not she had been on drugs before she was found.
And it was not clear whether she had intended for the cowherd Pandurang Gawkar to find her; he stumbled upon her by chance in the middle of a dense forest.
How long would she have been left with just a bag of food, a coat and her ID if he hadn’t found her?
A T-shirt hangs from a tree above Lalita at the spot where police found her in late July.
The woman was found in possession of several documents, including a passport and a mobile phone.
Police revised their initial impression and told reporters that the woman was distressed because her visa to India had expired and she was running out of money.
It is unclear what visa he was travelling on or exactly how long he had been in India, but two five-year visas are believed to be close to expiring or have recently expired.
She said her financial situation had caused her a lot of stress, prompting her to buy chains and padlocks to tie herself up.
In a passing comment, the International Business Times claims who was previously “involved in a similar incident in Tamil Nadu before moving to Goa”, although she does not provide further details or evidence.
But police have yet to explain how he managed to travel more than 500 miles from his registered address to a forest in the middle of nowhere without help or records.
Although police believe he might have reached the forest near the Maharashtra-Goa border by train, the International Business Times information.
“The woman was travelling to Goa from Mumbai. Since there is only one track, the train stops a couple of times before entering Goa,” an officer told The Indian Express.
“That place is near this forest. We suspect that she got off when the train stopped.”
Nor have they been able to indicate why she might have tried to attribute this to a husband who they now say does not exist.
Police have not yet said who they were investigating when they began an investigation into the man named ‘Satish’.
But for now, it’s getting better.
Dr Sanghamitra Phule, superintendent of the hospital where she is staying, said her family in the US had been contacted and she was in touch with them.
Doctors say his condition is improving and he is now able to eat, walk and exercise.
As of July 30, some 30 people had been questioned, and more were expected to join.
The US embassy declined to comment on the case, citing its right to privacy.
It was unclear whether charges would be filed against Lalita.
