'Depressed' Latvian woman seeking treatment in India found dead

A Latvian woman who had travelled to India seeking treatment for depression was found murdered after being allegedly drugged and then raped.

The woman's decomposed body was found, hanging upside down with her head severed in a forest last month, NDTV reported. 

Two suspects have been arrested, with the police reporting the men lured her, drugged and sexually assaulted her.

According to reports, thirty-three-year-old Liga Skromane was a Latvian living in Dublin, Ireland, for the last five years. She along with her sister had arrived in Kerala in February. 

She had been hoping to be treated at one of the ayurvedic centres the area is famous for. However, she went missing after leaving the centre to visit a beach. 

On April 21, the police found a woman's decomposed body near a mangrove forest in Thiruvallam. The woman's sister identified her body and the DNA samples confirmed it.

The two suspects in police custody are said to be drug peddlers. One of them is a repeat offender who has sexually abused women and men in the past in the same isolated marshy area where the victim's body was found, reports indicate.

This incident comes after two teenagers were gang-raped in separate incidents in India in the past four days.

On Tuesday, a 19-year-old woman was raped by five men, including the driver of an autorickshaw she hailed in another district of the same state.

The cases highlight a rape epidemic that shows no sign of abating despite tougher penalties introduced last month.

Last month, India's government approved the death penalty for child rapists, after the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl and a series of other horrific sexual assaults caused nationwide outrage.