By Irving Feng
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
Local Indian police arrested five or six young men who allegedly gang raped a Swiss female tourist on Friday, bringing into question India’s commitment to providing adequate safety to women within its borders.
The Swiss woman, age 39, was vacationing with her husband when the gruesome crime occurred. She and her husband were engaged in a 250 kilometer (roughly 155 miles) biking adventure tour from Orchha to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal when they stopped to camp near Sewda road.
They set up camp in a forested area, and the suspected perpetrators invaded their camp area during the night. The men beat the woman’s husband with wooden sticks, and some of the men sexually assaulted and brutally raped the woman in front of her husband while he was tied up to a tree.
The suspects were reportedly carrying a firearm at the time of the assault. Police say that the attackers also stole some of the pair’s valuables including cellular phones, laptop computer, and around 10,000 rupees ($185).
The young men suspected of committed the crime were all members of a local tribe known as the Kanjar from the village of Jharia in the Datia district. Police checked the criminal history of the men and found their records to be clean. Their ages ranged from 20 to 25.
The couple has made it safely to the Swiss embassy in New Delhi. The Swiss Ministry for Foreign Affairs released a statement to the press indicating that there is an extreme interest in rectifying the situation for their two citizens, and a course of action will be implemented in due time.
The Swiss government had recently issued a travel warning last month to all tourists travelling to India regarding the alarming number of rapes and other sexual attacks occurring throughout the country. Other countries may be prompted to release similar warnings to their general publics in the near future.
This newest incident involving a foreign victim comes at a time when sexual crimes in India are on the rise. The National Crime Records Bureau suggests that roughly one woman is raped every 20 minutes in their country.
After last December’s brutal rape and murder of a physiotherapy student in Delhi, protestors took to the streets to demonstrate and called for the perpetrators to be sentenced to death. India’s legislature has recently implemented harsher punishments for the crime of rape, increasing the prison terms from seven to ten years to a maximum of 20 years.
For further information, please see:
BBC – Six held over India rape of Swiss woman – 18 March 2013
The Times of India – 5 arrested for Swiss woman’s gang-rape – 18 March 2013
The Huffington Post – Five Men Arrested In Gang-Rape Of Swiss Woman In India – 17 March 2013
Reuters – Six arrested for gang-raping Swiss tourist in India: police – 17 March 2013
