“The sound came from the forest on the mountainside. When I went there, I saw that one of her legs was tied to a tree. She was screaming like an animal.”

Cowherd Pandurang Gawkar was the first to find US ballet teacher Lalita Kayi after she disappeared deep in the forests of India on July 27.

The police found a mobile phone, a tablet and about 290 pounds (about 370 US dollars) in local currency on the 50-year-old.

However, she was emaciated, apparently just skin and bones, had wounds on her leg and was suffering from “extreme psychosis”.

She had initially told police that her husband had “chained her up and left her in the forest to die” without food or water.

Lalita is said to have spent 40 days in the remote forests of north Goa and it seemed a miracle that a shepherd who happened to stumble upon the place found her.

The strangest revelation, however, came on Tuesday when police said she had told them she was not actually married and had tied herself to the tree.

Lalita initially told police she had been treated with medication that blocked her jaw

Police rescued her after a cowherd heard her screams from the dense forest

In a note, she said she had been given an injection for “extreme psychosis” and had not eaten for 40 days.

Little was initially known about “Lalitha Kayi,” who was found on July 27 in a dense forest near Sonurli, a small village of about 1,500 people about 280 miles from Mumbai.

The police found several documents on her that contained some clues to her identification.

Her passport shows that she is a US citizen from Massachusetts, while other documents show that she currently lives in Tamil Nadu, at the southern tip of the subcontinent.

MailOnline has learned that Lalita recently graduated from Boston University before working as an independent dance professor.

According to police, Lalita was a ballet dancer and yoga practitioner in America before moving to India about ten years ago.

It is said that she left home to study yoga and meditation in Tamil Nadu.

However, nothing further was said about the reasons that led Lalita to move to the other side of the world.

It is also not known how Lalita can claim to have studied in Boston between 2018 and 2022 when she moved to India ten years ago.

Boston University in its home state of Massachusetts offers a number of online courses – at least in part during the pandemic.

Tourists and companies can apply for a visa to stay in India, which is valid for five years. However, tourists cannot extend their visit.

Business visas can be extended – but Lalita says she has only been working as a teacher for less than two years, so other questions remain unanswered.

Then the story gets strange.

Initially, police believed that Lalita had been tied to a tree with a band around her leg by her husband, described in some media reports as a man named Satish.

They said they would have to cut down the tree and break the lock to free her from her bonds.

Lalita was unable to speak at first, exhausted from malnutrition, and everything they knew came from her scribbles on a notepad.

She only knew English and could not communicate with them in Hindi or Marathi.

“When we discovered her, she was severely dehydrated,” said Amol Chavan, an inspector at Sawantwadi police station.

“It seems she was stuck there for at least 48 hours. Although she was mute.”

In her notes, Lalita told police that after an argument, her husband tied her to a tree for 40 days without food and left her there to “die.”

According to police, they found “a raincoat and food” in her bag.

She also claimed she was given an “injection for extreme psychosis” that locked her jaw and prevented her from drinking water, and had to be fed intravenously.

“I am a victim and I survived. But he ran away from here,” she told police.

Lalita was found tied to a tree after a cowherd heard her calling for help

Lalita was taken to a psychiatric hospital in India after she was found in a remote forest

She was found tied to a tree and could not speak. She only communicated through notes

Police later said they could not verify these claims and found it unlikely that anyone could survive that long without food and water.

As a rule, humans can survive for about three days without water and up to three weeks without food.

Police believe Lalita was “stuck” for at least two days.

During the first five days without food, a person can lose 1–2 kg of body weight per day, largely due to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.

This condition improves over time, but photos from the hospital show that Lalita is severely malnourished.

She was first taken to a medical centre in Taluka Sawantwadi in Sindhudurg, where doctors had to give her intravenous nutrition.

“The woman is not in a position to make a statement,” police said at the time.

“The woman is weakened because she has not eaten for several days and there has been heavy rain in the area.”

“We don’t know how long she was tied to that tree. Apparently she left her husband after an argument.”

Soon, a case of attempt to murder was registered against ‘Satish’ and teams were sent to her house to investigate the case.

They hoped that the cell phone and tablet computer they found on her might also shed light on how she had gotten into such a bad condition.

But then the twist.

On August 6, police and Lalita’s doctor told the BBC that they were now convinced that Lalita had tied herself to the tree after confessing.

Lalita is currently being treated in a psychiatric facility while investigators try to understand what happened.

However, about ten days after her discovery, police announced that she had retracted her original statement and stated that she was not even married.

Saurabh Agarwal, police commissioner of Sindhudurg, told the broadcaster that it was believed that she was probably suffering from hallucinations when she first made her statement.

It was not clear what she might have taken with her or received from the police.

She had claimed that she had been prescribed medication for severe psychosis before admitting that her husband was a lie.

It is unclear whether she had taken drugs before she was found.

And it was not clear whether she intended to be found by cowherd Pandurang Gawkar; he had only stumbled upon him by chance in the middle of a dense forest.

How long would she have stayed there with only a bag of food, a coat and her ID if he hadn’t found her?

A T-shirt hangs on a tree above Lalita at the spot where she was found by police in late July.

Various documents were found on the woman, including a passport and a mobile phone

Police revised their initial impression and told reporters that she was desperate because her Indian visa had expired and she had run out of money.

It is not clear what visa she was travelling on or exactly how long she had been in India, but two five-year visas are indeed likely to be expiring soon or have recently expired.

She claimed that her financial situation caused her great stress and led her to purchase chains and locks to bind herself.

In a passing remark, the International Business Times claims that she was “involved in a similar incident in Tamil Nadu before moving to Goa” – but provides no further details or evidence.

But the police still have no explanation as to how she managed to travel the more than 800-kilometer route from her registered address to a forest in the middle of nowhere without any help or documents.

However, police believe she may have reached the forest near the Maharashtra-Goa border by train, reports the International Business Times.

“The woman was travelling from Mumbai to Goa. Since the train has only one track, it stops a few times before entering Goa,” an official told The Indian Express.

“This spot is near this forest. We suspect she got off when the train stopped.”

Nor could they explain why she might have tried to shift the blame onto a husband they now say didn’t even exist.

The police have also not yet disclosed who they were investigating when they launched the investigation against the man named “Satish.”

But she’s feeling better at the moment.

Dr. Sanghamitra Phule, the director of the hospital where she is currently, said they have been in touch with her family in the US and she is in touch with them.

Doctors say her condition is improving and she can now eat, walk and exercise.

By July 30, around 30 people had already been interviewed, and more are to follow.

The US Embassy declined to comment on the case, citing its right to privacy.

It was unclear whether charges would be brought against Lalita.