Five men admit to raping Swiss tourist, say Indian police
Five men have been arrested and have confessed to raping a Swiss woman who was attacked in central India while on a cycling vacation with her husband, police have said.
Two other suspects are being sought, said DK Arya, a senior police officer. The five men arrested on Sunday are from villages near where the attack occurred on Friday night as the Swiss couple camped in a forest in the Datia district of Madhya Pradesh state.
The couple 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, Arya said. They said the husband also was attacked by the men.
The woman, 39, was treated on Saturday at a hospital in the nearby city of Gwalior and was released later that day. Arya said the couple was heading to Delhi, the Indian capital, later on Sunday.
The attack was front-page news in Indian newspapers and happened three months after the fatal gang rape of a woman aboard a Delhi bus, an attack that spurred outrage over the treatment of women in Indian society and the country's justice system.
Before the attack the Swiss tourists, who were on a three-month visit, had visited the temple town of Orchha and were planning to cycle the 130 miles to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal.
They set out from Orchha on Friday and pitched their tent in a forest when they were attacked by men armed with sticks, police said.
The men beat up the husband, tied him to a tree and then raped the woman. They also stole the couple's phone, laptop computer and 10,000 rupees (£123). Police recovered the laptop and phone from one of the men who was arrested.
Official show that a woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. However, many incidents of sexual crimes go unreported. India's conviction rate for rapes and other crimes against women is among the lowest in the world.
Last month, the Swiss government issued a travel notice for India that included a warning about "increasing numbers of rapes and other sexual offences", and the latest incident could prompt other countries to issue similar warnings.
Category: Gossip news, Local
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