5 held for Japanese woman’s gang-rape

The police have arrested five men in connection with the alleged abduction and gang-rape of a 23-year-old Japanese tourist, officials said on Saturday. 

The woman had filed a complaint through the Japanese consulate in Kolkata, saying she had been staying in a budget hotel in the city in November when three local men who spoke Japanese befriended her and took her to the seaside resort of Digha in West Bengal.

According to Kolkata police, she said they had robbed her of Rs 76,000 using her ATM card, and then took her to Bodh Gaya in Bihar. There, she alleged that two more men joined them and raped her.

“We have arrested three people from Kolkata and two from Gaya in connection with the incident,” said Pallav Kanti Ghosh, a senior police official in Kolkata.

He said two of them had been charged with gang-rape. The incident has again turned the spotlight on the safety of women in the world’s largest democracy.