Panaji, May 20 (Inditop) Police investigating the death of Russian teenager Elena Sukhonova, who was found dead on a rail track near here, may have ignored a key piece of evidence – a paper napkin found near her body that had a map drawn on it.
The map was found May 9, a day after Elena’s mutilated body was discovered at Revora, about three km from the Thivim railway station, by a cameraman attached to a television news channel. It also had the teenager’s e-mail address.
“We were walking along the railway tracks along with several police officers, who had come to scout the area for clues,” Vaman Dessai, the cameraman, told Inditop.
Dessai added that the police had initially missed the scrap of paper. When he handed it over to them, a member of the police team scouring the area said it was not very important.
“The police team was about to throw it away, but when I pointed out that the map could be of significance to them, they decided to keep it,” he said.
However, the paper napkin containing the map and the e-mail address has not been attached in the seizure memo compiled by the police that contains a list of items found at the site, including Elena’s Nokia cell phone and credit card.
Vikram Varma, representative of the Russian Consulate, told IANS that Russian authorities had been requested to formally access Elena’s e-mail address.
“It will help the investigation if there was any correspondence sent by her to her friends back home,” he said.
The police, however, don’t appear too keen on going into the reasons why the map was sketched or accessing the dead teenager’s e-mail address.
“We find lots of things along the tracks. The paper (napkin) was there on the tracks. It must be somewhere with us,” Deputy Superintendent of Police Sammy Tavares said, adding that the map could have been made to help her with directions to the place where she was staying.
Team DainikDisha