An American woman was apparently gang-raped by three men in the tourist area of Manali in India’s mountainous northern state of Himachal Pradesh early Tuesday, officials said.
The attack on the 30-year-old tourist follows a string of high-profile assaults on women in recent months including the rape and fatal beating of a 23-year-old Indian physiotherapy student on a bus in New Delhi by five men and a juvenile in mid-December that sparked national outrage, soul-searching and new fast-track courts. Police in India are often poorly trained and cases entering the legal system can take years, even decades, to resolve.
Neelchand, a local policeman in the Manali station house who uses one name, said the victim was staying at a guest house with two or three female friends and left about 10 p.m. Monday to meet a friend at a village approximately four miles away. Unable to find a taxi or tuk-tuk on her return, she hitchhiked and was picked up by a truck with three men inside.
“The men took a long route, addressing her as sister,” Neelchand said. “At a secluded spot, they raped her, then dropped her near a bridge in Manali at around 2:30 or 3 a.m.”
The officer said no arrests have been made in the attack, in part because the woman didn’t remember the truck’s license plate number and was in a state of shock. A medical exam confirmed the attack, Neelchand said, and an investigation was underway.
Roadblocks were set up and all trucks in Manali ordered to report to the police station as part of the investigation, police said.
India’s tourism ministry reported 6.6 million international visitors in 2012 brought in earnings of $17.7 billion compared with 6.3 million and $16.5 billion in 2011. The ministry wants to boost visitor arrivals by 12% annually in coming years in order to spur employment and double foreign exchange earnings by 2016.
But the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, a trade group, reported in late March that female tourist arrivals dropped after the fatal mid-December gang rape, which attracted headlines worldwide. About 70% of tour operators surveyed by the group in the first three months of 2013 said they’d seen a number of bookings canceled, especially by women from Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia.
In January, a South Korean tourist was allegedly drugged and raped in central Madhya Pradesh state by the son of the owner of the hotel where she was staying. This was followed in March by the reported gang rape of a Swiss cyclist in the same state.
Also in March, a British woman traveling in northern India leaped from the third-floor window of her hotel room fearing a sexual attack after the hotel's owner tried to force his way into the room. She suffered minor injuries.
While alleged rapes of foreign women in India attract extensive investigations and media attention, many rapes of Indian women still go unreported in a society where victims face stigma, police harassment and even pressure to marry their attackers when they report it.
The victim in Tuesday’s attack told authorities her attackers also stole her cellphone, camera and cash. The accused, allegedly between 18 and 25 years old, fled after the attack.
Under a law passed after the December attack, prison terms were increased in rape cases, with those convicted subject to the death penalty in rapes that lead to death or leave the victim in a coma. The statute also makes stalking, acid attacks, voyeurism and trafficking of women punishable under criminal law.
Courtesy of L.A times
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