Damka Police/X
Photos of three men arrested for allegedly raping and assaulting a tourist couple in India have been released by Dumka police.
New Delhi
CNN
—
Police in eastern India are searching for four more suspects in a case that highlights the country's decades-long struggle to curb sexual violence against women, including gang rape of a foreign tourist. Three men were arrested on suspicion of assaulting the husband.
The couple, who were traveling on a motorbike from West Bengal to neighboring Nepal, were spotted by police officers on patrol late Friday, said Pitambal Singh Kherwal, chief of police in Jharkhand's Dumka district.
The two were taken to the hospital, where the woman told doctors she had been raped.
Kherwal said police were aware of the identity of the wanted suspect and had formed a special investigation team. It is unclear whether the three arrested suspects have legal representatives.
In accordance with Indian law that prohibits publishing the names of victims of sexual violence, CNN is not publishing the names of the women. Police have not released the couple's names or nationalities.
The arrests came after the travel vlogger couple posted on their Instagram accounts on Saturday that they had a “knife held to their throats” during an attack in India. The woman was reportedly raped and taken to the hospital for DNA testing.
The couple posted in Spanish, and the woman said on her Instagram page that she is Brazilian.
In an Instagram Story, the woman showed bruises on her face and wrote, “My face looks like this, but that's not where it hurts the most. I thought I was going to die.”
In a follow-up post on Sunday, the couple thanked their followers for their support, said they were doing well and that “police are doing everything in their power to arrest the remaining suspects.”
CNN has reached out to the couple for comment.
India's National Commission for Women (NCW) condemned the alleged attack.
NCW president Rekha Sharma has interacted with the victims and provided all necessary support, the group said in a post on social platform X on Saturday.
Jharkhand Minister Mithilesh Kumar Thakur termed the alleged assault a “reprehensible incident”.
“If a crime is committed, the perpetrator will not be saved,” he said on Saturday.
India has long struggled to combat high rates of violence against women, and a number of high-profile rape cases by foreign tourists have brought the issue to international attention.
In 2018, a British woman was allegedly raped on her way to a hotel in the western state of Goa, a popular tourist destination. Two years ago, an American woman was allegedly drugged and raped in a five-star hotel room in New Delhi by a group of men. And in 2013, six men were sentenced to life in prison for the gang rape of a Swiss tourist.
According to India's National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 31,516 rape cases were recorded in 2022, with an average of 86 cases per day.
And experts warn that the number of recorded incidents is only a fraction of the true number in a deeply patriarchal country where shame and stigma surround rape victims and their families. .
Under current Indian law, it is still not a crime for a man to force his wife to have sex or perform a sexual act, as long as she is over 18 years old.
Perhaps India's most infamous case in recent years was the gang rape of a medical student who was brutally attacked on a public bus in New Delhi in 2012, beaten, tortured and left to die.
The incident and the subsequent nationwide protests drew intense international media scrutiny and prompted authorities to reform the law. The rape law was amended in 2013, expanding the definition of the crime and stipulating harsh penalties not only for rape but also for sexual assault, voyeurism, and stalking.
Despite these changes, rape remains prevalent in the country, and victims and advocates say the government is still not doing enough to protect women and punish their attackers. .
