Indian police are trying to understand how a Russian woman and her two young daughters ended up in a cave in the southern part of the country, where she had been living to “get health from nature”, writes BBC.
Nina Kutina was rescued on the 9th of July when she was spotted by a police patrol during a routine check in the Gokarna forest near the tourist paradise of Goa. Authorities have said that the 40-year-old woman and her daughters did not have valid documents.
In two video interviews with the Indian news agency ANI, Kutina defended her lifestyle and said that she and her daughters had been living happily in the cave, where “nature gives health”.
A week after Kutina and her daughters were found, it is still not clear how they ended up in the forest, how long they were there and who they really are.
M. Narayana, the superintendent of police for the Uttara Kannada district, told the BBC that
the area is popular with tourists, but it is also full with snakes, and landslides are common,
especially during the rainy season. Regular patrols in the forest were started last year to ensure the safety of tourists. Police found Kutina and her daughters in the cave. Their belongings were modest – plastic mats, clothes, instant noodles and a few other food items.
Narayana said that both the woman and the children seemed to be very comfortable in the cave, and efforts had to be made to convince them that the cave was not a safe place. Kutina and her daughters were taken to a hospital, where after health checks, all three were found to be physically healthy.
An official from India’s Foreigners Registration Office (FRRO) told the BBC that Kutina is a Russian citizen and will be repatriated as soon as all the formalities are completed.
In interviews with Indian media,
Kutina told that she was born in Russia, but has not lived there for 15 years and travels the world.
The woman said that she has four children, and that her eldest son died in a road accident in Goa last year. Officials reported that the woman’s other son is 11 years old and is in Russia; the Russian consulate has also been informed about this.
On the evening of the 15th of July, the FRRO reported that it had managed to find the girls’ father, Israeli businessman Dror Goldstein. He is currently in India and has met with officials. Goldstein told NDTV that Kutina left Goa without informing him, and that he had filed a missing person’s report with the police there. He also indicated that he wants to obtain joint custody of the daughters and will do everything to keep them away from Russia.
It is still unknown when and how Kutina and her daughters ended up in the forest. The woman told police that she had been living in the cave for a week. A week before she was found, she had been shopping at a local store. Kutina claimed that she had also lived in a cave in Goa, and that one of her daughters was also born there.
It is also unknown when and from where Kutina arrived in India. She told police that she had lost her passport, but officials found an expired passport in the woman’s belongings, which contained a business visa, supposedly from October 2016 to April 2017. She stayed in the country longer, was caught after a year, and was ordered to leave the country by the FRRO. According to the stamps in her passport, Kutina arrived in Nepal in April 2018 and left three months later.
It is assumed that Kutina returned to India in 2020.
She admitted that her visa expired a few months ago, but mourning the death of her eldest son prevented her from sorting out the matter.
Although it has been reported that the Russian citizen chose to live in a cave for religious reasons, she denies this. The main reason is that life in a cave is healthy, and her kids in the cave also felt happy. In addition, the chosen cave was large and close to a village where she could buy food and other goods.
Kutina denies that she put her daughters in danger, and said that she saw a few snakes, but no more than people encounter at home.
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