Dumka, India, Mar 5 (EFE).- Indian police have arrested all suspects involved in an alleged rape of a Spanish tourist and brutal attack on her husband last week, an officer said on Tuesday.
“We have arrested all those involved in the case,” Superintendent of Police Pitamber Singh Kherwar told EFE.
Kherwar said four suspects were detained on Monday night, with three held earlier over the weekend after a group of men allegedly gang-raped the Spanish woman and assaulted her husband on Friday in a nondescript village in eastern India.
The heinous attack on the foreign tourists, who were on a biking tour and had traveled through several countries before arriving in India, has sparked national and international outrage.
The incident, which occurred in Jharkhand state, prompted the top court in the eastern region to take suo moto cognizance of the case.
“The incidents of crime of any kind against a foreign national may have serious national and international repercussions, including impacting the tourism economy of the country,” the court said in its observation, asking police to file a probe progress report so far in the matter.
“A sex-related crime against a foreign woman is likely to bring adverse publicity to the country, thereby tarnishing the image of India across the globe,” the court said.
Before departing for their onward journey, the traumatized yet resilient couple provided fresh statements to officers on Tuesday, an official source told EFE.
The source said the victims spent at least two hours speaking with the police before embarking on a two-day journey to Nepal, the Himalayan country to India’s east.
Authorities offered the couple a police escort to accompany them to the Jharkhand state border, the source added.
The couple was attacked while asleep in their tent on Friday night in a remote area of Kunji village, approximately 300 km or an eight-hour drive from the state capital, Ranchi.
Unaware of the impending danger in the semi-forested area, the couple woke up to a nightmare as a group of seven men surrounded them.
They alleged that the men took turns raping the Spanish-Brazilian woman while her husband was tied up and kept at a distance, enduring blows and kicks from the attackers.
The Spaniards, on a world expedition tour, said they had visited 66 countries, covering 170,000 km, including various challenging regions, and even entered Afghanistan on a motorcycle during the Taliban era.
Before leaving the country, they expressed their hope for justice, emphasizing the need for stringent penalties to be imposed on the perpetrators.
“Here in India, the penalties are indeed harsh, and anyone who thinks of doing something like this should think twice,” the man said, insisting that despite such cases, India remains a safe country, as is the rest of Asia.
Crimes of sexual violence are rampant in India, with Jharkhand among the 10 provinces with the highest number of cases of sexual assault and rape.
In 2022, India reported an average of nearly 90 rapes every day, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. However, activists argue that the actual number could be higher due to underreporting driven by victim stigma.
The latest crime report said in all such cases, less than 2 percent were foreign victims, even though this may be partly due to the difficulties in initiating a police case by non-national women, in some cases tourists, and distrust of the authorities. EFE
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