SHIMLA: Police arrested three Nepalese truckers yesterday over the gang rape of a US tourist who was attacked after she hitched a ride late at night, officers said.
The 30-year-old American accepted a lift in a truck 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.
“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 happened, told AFP.
The men, all aged in their 20s and from Nepal, were being interrogated by police and their truck has been seized, a police statement said.
Two were arrested in the resort town of Manali where they were living, while the third was seized as he tried to leave the district.
The owner of the truck told police he had hired one of those arrested, a 22-year-old named Arjun, as a driver just four to five days earlier, the statement said.
The American told police the truck driver and two accomplices took her to a secluded spot where they raped her for over an hour.
She gave police a description of the men and also identified the truck model, which is commonly used to transport construction materials in the state.
Police said a team had gathered forensic evidence from the truck which had been sent for analysis. The investigation was continuing with personal items stolen from the women not yet recovered.
The three will appear before a court for remand, it said.
The woman is staying under police protection in a hotel in the Manali area, some 500 kilometres north of the capital New Delhi.
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.
AFP
