A painfully frail-looking American woman was found chained to a tree in an Indian forest — claiming her husband left her to die there without food for 40 days.
Lalita Kayi, 50, was found chained up in a dense forest in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra by a shepherd who heard her cries for help Saturday night, according to NDTV.
She was taken to Goa Medical College for specialized therapy, where she was too weak to speak.
However, she scribbled a note in English saying she had gone “40 days without food in the forest” after her “husband tied” her to a tree with an iron chain.
Authorities believe that the woman — who also wrote of suffering “extreme psychosis” — suffers from mental health issues, NDTV said. Medications for such issues were found on her.
Still, police opened an investigation into possible attempted murder by her estranged husband, who was not identified.
“Police are also trying to verify if the woman’s claim that she was chained by her former husband was genuine. We are verifying every claim and information in the note written by her,” Police Superintendent Saurabh Agrawal told the outlet.
Kayi was found with an American passport — as well as an expired visa that suggested she had lived in India for 10 years, the outlet said. It was not clear where in America she was originally from.
Other documents suggested she had been living with her husband in Tamil Nadu.
She has not been able to provide authorities with an official statement due to her weakened state.
“When we discovered her, she was seriously dehydrated. It appears that she was stuck there for a minimum of 48 hours. Although she was mute,” said Amol Chavan, an inspector at Sawantwadi Police Station and member of the squad who located her.
Police had to chop down the tree and break the lock holding the woman captive, according to Chavan.
Officials have yet to confirm just how long Kumar was left tied to the tree, but the area she was in had recently experienced a heavy bout of rain.
