Six men accused of raping a Swiss tourist who was cycling with her husband in central India have appeared in court charged with gang rape.
Police said the men were arrested in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh state and are farmers from nearby villages. The men were arrested yesterday.
The attack occurred Friday night as the couple camped in a forest in Datia district.
They told police that the woman had been raped by seven or eight men, but that it was dark and they could not be sure of the exact number.
The woman (39) and her husband were camping in dense forest about 400 yards from a road after visiting the temple town of Orchha when they were attacked.
“Their initial intention was to rob the couple,” said Syed Mohhamed Afjal, the inspector general of the police for the Chambal area of the state, in a telephone interview.
“They thought that foreigners may have a lot of money,” he said, but found only 10,000 Indian rupees (about €160), a cellphone and a laptop.
Then “their intentions changed,” he said, and several of the men raped the woman.
The suspects are understood to be between 19 to 25-years-old, Mr Afjal said. The police interrogated 20 suspects in the case, said Dalip Arya, deputy inspector general for the Chambal area.
The couple were making their way from Orchha to Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal, the police said. The journey was part of a cycling tour from Mumbai to New Delhi.
They were in India on three-month tourist visas, Arya said. The woman's name was not released, in keeping with Indian laws.
The episode is the latest example of violent sexual attacks on women in
India.
Reported rapes have risen in recent years, and reports of gang rape are becoming increasingly prevalent, particularly in northern India.
In December, a 23-year-old student was raped by five men and a youth on a moving bus in New Delhi. She later died from her injuries. That attack prompted widespread protests in India and demands that the government do more to protect women.
Reuters/Bloomberg