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A SWISS FEMALE tourist was gang-raped in central India in front of her husband, police said today, renewing the focus on the issue of sexual violence against women in the South Asian nation.
The woman was on a cycling trip with her husband in impoverished Madhya Pradesh state, when seven to eight men attacked the couple on Friday night while they were camping, sexually assaulting the woman and robbing the pair, police said.
The attackers “tied up the man and raped the woman in his presence”, local police official S.M. Afzal told AFP, adding that they stole 10,000 rupees ($185) and a mobile phone from the woman.
The attack comes just months after thousands took to the streets to protest against India’s treatment of women following the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in December.
“We are deeply shocked by this tragic incident suffered by a Swiss citizen and her partner in India,” the Swiss foreign ministry in Bern said in a statement.
The Swiss ministry said its diplomats in India were in contact with local authorities and that it hoped the attackers would be “swiftly identified and would appear before a court to answer for their actions”.
The couple were on their way to the tourist destination of Agra, home to the iconic Taj Mahal monument, in northern India when they stopped to camp for the night.
“The victims, who belong to Switzerland, put up a tent to stay overnight” in a forested area when the attack occurred, Afzal said. Indian media reports said the men were wielding sticks when they attacked the couple.
After the attack, the rape victim, aged about 40, was admitted to hospital in Gwalior city, 212 miles (342 kilometres) from state capital Bhopal, local police official M.S. Dhodee said.
The woman was released later in the day from hospital, local media reports said. Dhodee told AFP that police were still investigating the case but added that “a rape case has been registered against seven unidentified people”.
Reacting to the attack, the state’s opposition leader Ajay Singh said it “had brought a bad name to Madhya Pradesh at the international level”.
In 2003, a 36-year-old female Swiss diplomat was abducted in the car park of a popular New Delhi auditorium, driven away by two men and raped. She was freed later nearby. No one has been convicted for that attack.
Concern remains high in India over the safety and status of women and girls in the country of 1.2 billion.
According to government crime statistics, one woman is raped every 20 minutes in India, but most incidents go unreported, mainly due to the victims’ fear of being stigmatised in the sexually conservative nation.
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They just bailing out German, French and English Banks who are the Italian Bond Holders !
Haha the new punt has been printed.. Good one as if any Irish government would hav the foresight to do such a thing they have their heads buried in the sand hoping someone else does something to rescue us.. If the euro does go we’ll be trading spuds for 6 months while the print a new currency
It will end when they just admit the euro experiment for a world currency has failed, until ( and it will never happen) all countries of the world have an equal economic footing this is beggars belief… The punt in it’s new form has been printed and is waiting in the wings.
When will it end !
Starting to look like the so called conspiracy nutters were onto something.
when the shit hit them on the face it,s all of a sudden a world problem not little old greece and ireland any more economic genuises the lot of them over paid gombeens who are making the ordinary people the fall guy,s
If you are still stoopid enough to keep euros, you need a slap. Buy gold and silver!
Or art… You can buy some excellent artwork at the moment. http://Www.zhibit.org/thegardengallery
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