Police in India have detained five men in connection with the alleged abduction and rape of a Japanese tourist.
The young woman, who had been staying in Kolkata, said she had been lured by three men who offered to show her around. They took her around eastern India and then traveled with her to Bodh Gaya, the site of one of India’s holiest Buddhist temples, in the state of Bihar.
There, she alleged that two more men joined them, held her captive and repeatedly raped her.
Police said the woman escaped her captors last month and reached Kolkata, where she filed a complaint at the Japanese consulate.
Sexual violence against women in India came under the international spotlight after the gang rape of a 23-year-old girl on a moving bus in 2012, an attack so brutal that she died of her injuries.
Laws have since been tightened, but activists say society’s attitude to women needs to change radically to combat sexual harassment and violence.
Some information for this report came from AFP and Reuters.
