Five men have been arrested in India charged with kidnapping and repeatedly raping a Japanese student.<\/p>\n
Police in the eastern city of Calcutta say the assaults took place over a period of more than a month from 23 November and in at least two locations.<\/p>\n
They say an organised gang is suspected of targeting single women tourists.<\/p>\n
Increasing numbers of rape cases are being reported and highlighted in India, prompting widespread outrage.<\/p>\n
Pallav Kanti Ghosh, a Calcutta police commissioner, told BBC Hindi that two of the men – said to be brothers – approached the 23-year-old victim as tourist guides after she arrived in the city and checked into a hotel in an area popular with foreign tourists.<\/p>\n
Trafficked at Buddhist holy site<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n “One of the men spoke very fluent Japanese,” he said.<\/p>\n “They said: ‘We are guides and want to take you sight-seeing.’<\/p>\n “They took her to Digha [a beach resort in West Bengal state] on 23 November. There they sexually assaulted her and robbed her of 76,000 rupees [\u00a31,200] using her ATM card.”<\/p>\n She was then taken to Bodh Gaya, the holiest site of Buddhism and a major pilgrimage and tourist centre.<\/p>\n “There, the men handed her over to other gang members,” Mr Ghosh said.<\/p>\n The woman was held captive for several weeks and the assaults continued, he said.<\/p>\n In late December she managed to reach the city of Varanasi from where she travelled to Calcutta, lodging a complaint via the Japanese consulate on 26 December.<\/p>\n Mr Ghosh said three of the men were arrested near Bodh Gaya and two in Calcutta. The Hindustan Times newspaper said some were held after their mobile phone calls were intercepted.<\/p>\n He said police were searching for other members of what he called an organised gang, several of whom are reportedly proficient in Japanese.<\/p>\n Sexual violence in India has been in the spotlight since a student was fatally gang-raped on a bus in Delhi two years ago.<\/p>\n That and other cases have prompted a domestic and international outcry.<\/p>\n Other foreign women targeted by gang-rapists include a Swiss cyclist assaulted in central India in 2013 and a Danish tourist attacked in Delhi a year ago.<\/p>\n Rape laws have been toughened in response to the crimes but correspondents say this has failed to act as a deterrent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Five men have been arrested in India charged with kidnapping and repeatedly raping a Japanese student. Police in the eastern city of Calcutta say the assaults took place over a period of more than a month from 23 November and in at least two locations. They say an organised gang is suspected of targeting single […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":79159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[38,14],"yoast_head":"\n