SHIMLA, India: Indian police arrested three men Thursday over the gang-rape of a US tourist who was attacked after she hitched a ride in a truck, an officer told AFP.
The 30-year-old American accepted a lift on Monday night in Manali, a tourist destination in the foothills of the Himalayas, after struggling to find a taxi to return to her hotel.
The truck driver and two accomplices then abducted her and took her to a secluded spot where they raped her for over an hour, she told police.
"Three men have been arrested in connection with the rape," Vinod Dhawan, police chief of Kullu district in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, where the incident occurred, said by telephone.
Dhawan said he would give more details on the arrests at a news conference later on Thursday.
The woman, who cannot be identified under Indian law, is staying under police protection at a hotel in the Manali area, some 500 kilometres (300 miles) north of the capital New Delhi.
The incident follows the alleged rape of a 21-year-old Irish charity worker in the eastern city of Kolkata at the weekend, and comes as India tries to fight widespread sex crime with tougher laws.
Mass protests erupted across India in December and January following the fatal gang-rape of the student in New Delhi, a crime which brought simmering anger about the treatment of women in India to the surface.
A survey by an Indian trade body this year found the number of female tourists visiting the country had dropped by 35 percent following several sex attacks that made global headlines.
Measures passed by lawmakers in March increased punishments for sex offenders to include the death penalty if a victim dies and a minimum 20-year prison sentence for gang-rape. (AFP)
