SRINAGAR – A young British woman holidaying in Kashmir was found dead in a pool of blood in her houseboat room alongside scenic Dal Lake, police Saturday said.
Richard De-Wit, a Dutch national, has been accused of smashing the latch on the houseboat cabin door of the 24-year-old British tourist and stabbing her to death. Police eventually arrested the accused, who was taken into custody as he tried to flee the Kashmir valley.
They said the woman, Sarah Groves, 24, from Guernsey, had been stabbed to death on a houseboat in her houseboat room.
“We immediately reported to the spot and we walked into a pool of blood in her room,” superintendent of police, Tahir Sajjad told Kashmir Observer. “We found a sharp-edged knife close, to her body. The young lady had multiple stab wounds.”
The police officials were alerted early this morning by the owner of the New Beauty houseboat on Srinagars Dal Lake after he found the body of the young woman in her bedroom. He told police that a Dutch tourist who had also been staying at the property had left without his bags or shoes.
The houseboats owner, Abdul Rahim Shoda terms the death a family loss saying that the deceased woman had been staying with him for the last two months.
She was very nice lady and we would treat her as a family member now, Shoda said, three days ago, a Dutch tourist also took an adjoining room on the houseboat.
Narrating the incident in a shrill voice, This morning my wife got up at 5AM and shouted to me to go out and buy bread. I could see that the door of the houseboat was already open, Shoda said, who stays alongside the houseboat and noticed that his rowing boat, or shikara, was missing.
I went into the houseboat. He was not there. Then I saw Sarah. There was blood all over her body. I called my son and he took her to the hospital.
Shoda said that he was able to trace the movements of the Dutch tourist by calling the taxi stand at the tourist office in Srinagar and asking if anyone had given a lift to such a person. He was told that a tall man without any shoes and with no luggage had taken a vehicle to Jammu.
He said that Groves had taken a room two months ago. He said he had last seen her on Friday evening when he had taken a hot water bottle to her room.
Pertinently, the Foreign Office lifted its warning against travel to the cities of Srinagar and Jammu last November, although warnings remained in force in the rest of Kashmir.
The Kashmir valley has been enjoying a revamp of tourism, one of the mainstays of the local economy.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in New Delhi reportedly said that her next of kin were informed.
“We are aware of reports of an incident involving a British national in Srinagar, Kashmir, and are looking into it,” a spokesman said.
‘Police Patrol’
The state police were able to trace the registration number of the taxi and the Dutch tourist was intercepted near the town of Qazigund, around 40 miles south of Srinagar.
Senior police officer Afad-ul-Mujtaba said the man, in his 40s, had been taken back to Srinagar, the summer capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. He has been detained and his questioning is going on, he said.
Mujtaba said the police were awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination of the victim.
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