UK woman murdered in Srinagar houseboat

Srinagar (Agencies): A 24-year-old British woman was found murdered on Saturday in a houseboat on Dal Lake in Srinagar. A Dutch national who had also been living in the same houseboat has been arrested, police said. The woman tourist has been identified as Sarah Groves from Guernsey. The tourist was stabbed to death and discovered lying in a pool of blood inside her rented accommodation on the Dal Lake in Kashmir. A Dutch national, named by police as 43-year-old Richard de Wit, who is believed to have been staying in the same apartment, has been arrested on suspicion of her murder. A second man, the son of the owner of the houseboat where she was staying, is also helping police with their inquiries. 'The woman had multiple stab wounds all over her body and we found a knife next to her,' said police officer Afadul Mujtaba. He said the victim's body was sent for medical examination to determine whether she was sexually assaulted before being killed. Abdul Ghani Mir, the Inspector General of Kashmir, told a news channel that the man was arrested attempting to flee the area with only his passport. 'The Dutch national had fled from the houseboat in the night, leaving behind his belongings,' he said. 'He was trying to flee from the valley, carrying only his passport. We flashed an alert for his arrest.' The owner of the houseboat said Groves had been staying there for the past two months and was like a 'daughter' to him. Police said they have informed the victim's family and the British High Commission in New Delhi about the incident. The Foreign Office said it was aware of the death of a British national and was providing consular assistance to the victim's family. The 18 sq km Dal Lake in Srinagar is dotted with over 1,000 houseboats. Along the lake's shoreline are many vast gardens that go back to the Mughal era. Last year, over a million tourists visited the Kashmir Valley; over 20,000 of them were foreigners. George Harrison of the Beatles famously lived in a houseboat and learnt to play the sitar from Pandit Ravi Shankar in the 1960s.