Last month, A US woman was found chained to a tree in a forest of Ratnagiri. She told the Police that she had chained herself And was not in any position to control herself because of her mental illness. Earlier, while being mentally ill, she accused her husband of tying her to a tree and leaving her to die, stating that he injected her with something that made her extremely psychotic and had a locked jaw. She said that her claim that her husband had chained her even though she was not married was due to her hallucinations and that she had chained herself.
The Sindhudurg police found out that this wasn’t a one-time occurrence. The woman had chained herself to a tree in Tamil Nadu, where she was residing before moving to Goa.
Presently, the woman is admitted to the psychiatric section of a hospital in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. An IPS officer said, “We have recorded a detailed statement from her, where she admitted chaining herself to the tree. She was suffering from a mental illness and therefore was allergic to normal chains hence she used locks. Though a chain and locks were recovered from her possession she honestly accepted that this has been chained to the tree.”
The probe found that during the time she was in a hospital in Tamil Nadu, she also chained herself to a tree and needed to be freed. Informants who hail from Tamil Nadu and Goa have been recorded from the statement.
The officer was able to outline how the woman got to the forest, which is close to the Maharashtra-Goa border. She was on her way from Mumbai to Goa and because there is only one rail line with multiple stops, it is presumed that she got off the train when it stopped. ”Since there is only one line, the train halted a few times before reaching Goa,” the officer said, adding that this place is near this forest; she may have got off when the train stopped.
The woman has no one in India; her mother lives in the United States now. A shepherd who heard her crying in Sonurli village in Sawantwadi on July 27 raised the alarm and alerted the police, over 450 kilometres from Mumbai. The woman possessed an American passport; however, the visa was expired, and she came with an Aadhaar card whose address was issued in Tamil Nadu. She had come to India almost ten years ago to learn Yoga and for some time she used to live in Tamil Nadu and later shifted to Goa.
Currently, the investigation is going on, and looking at the circumstances, the FIR may be closed as there is no foul play involved, and the woman’s behaviour can be attributed to mental illness.
Her actions, initially misinterpreted as foul play, were later understood to be the result of severe mental illness and hallucinations. Currently recovering in a psychiatric ward, the woman’s case emphasizes the need for comprehensive mental health care and support systems to prevent such incidents.
