Police have arrested six men accused of the gang-rape of a
Swiss tourist who was camping with her husband in an Indian
forest in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
All the accused will go before a magistrate on Monday, Dilip
Arya, deputy inspector general of police, told Reuters.
Police have also recovered the couple's valuables.
The assault on the 39-year-old Swiss woman on Friday night
came three months after a 23-year-old physiotherapy student
was gang-raped and beaten in a moving bus and thrown bleeding
on to the street in a case that sparked outrage in the
country. She died later in hospital in Singapore.
The latest incident has again turned the spotlight on the
security of women in the world's largest democracy.
One woman is raped every 20 minutes in India, according to
the National Crime Records Bureau. But police estimate only
four out of 10 rapes are reported, largely due to victims'
fear of being shamed by their families and communities.
The Swiss woman and her husband were touring the state by
bicycle and were camping overnight in the forest. Arya told
Reuters on Saturday that seven men attacked the couple in
their tent and four of them raped the woman.
However, police investigation later found out that only six
people were involved in the crime, he said.
Those arrested are identified as Baba, Bhuta, Rampro, Bishnu,
Gaja and Nitin. They all aged between 20 and 25 years and
belong to a local tribe known as the Kanjar, Arya said. They
were also carrying a firearm.
No information was immediately available on the defendants'
account of events.
The woman and her husband have left the state and are now at
the Swiss embassy in New Delhi.
"A decision regarding the next steps to be made in the
interest of the two concerned Swiss citizens will be made
with them in due course," a spokesman for the Swiss Ministry
for Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
After the physiotherapy student was raped and beaten in Delhi
last December, millions of Indians took to the streets
demanding the death penalty for her attackers and official
action to reduce the number of assaults on women.
Four men and a juvenile are on trial for that attack. A sixth
defendant, who police say was the ringleader, was found dead
in his cell on Monday.
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