Current Events
Swiss Tourist Gang-Raped in India
HUFFINGTON POST
While the news is being headlined around the world, Indian media has been downplaying it, pursuant to a media clamp-down from the government. It will hurt India's image, they say.
A Swiss woman who was on a cycling trip in central India with her husband has been gang-raped by eight men, police said Saturday, March 16, 2013.
The attack comes three months after the fatal gang-rape of a woman aboard a New Delhi bus outraged Indians.[Rapes, though, have continued in the country and its capital city at the rate of, on the average, one reported every 22 minutes.The majority of such crimes go unreported.]
Authorities detained and questioned 13 men in connection with the latest attack, which occurred Friday night as the couple camped out in a forest in Madhya Pradesh state after bicycling from the temple town of Orchha, local police officer R.K. Gurjar said.
The men beat the couple and gang-raped the woman, he said. They also stole the couple's mobile phone, a laptop computer and 10,000 rupees ($185).
The woman was treated at a hospital in the nearby city of Gwalior, Gurjar said, adding that she and her husband apparently suffered no major injuries.
A photo showed the woman – her identity concealed with a hood – walking while being escorted by police to the hospital.
Police detained 13 men and questioned them, he said. Six of the men were released after questioning. No other details were immediately available.
Indian television stations showed scores of police searching the forest where the attack occurred.
India has seen public outrage and widespread protests against rape and attacks on women since December's fatal gang-rape of a young woman on a moving bus in New Delhi, the country's capital. The widely reported crime horrified Indians and set off nationwide protests about India's treatment of women and spurred the government to hurry through a new package of laws to protect them.
Edited for sikhchic.com
March 16, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Kiran (Gurgaon, India), March 16, 2013, 8:23 AM.
My advice: Visit India only if you ABSOLUTELY have to. Otherwise, avoid this country like the plague. It is not a safe place for women.
2: Gurteg Singh (New York, USA), March 16, 2013, 9:27 AM.
Indian media - a part of the Hindu establishment may downplay this horrendous act against the Swiss tourist, but the day is not too far when such incidents are going to earn India the headline "Gang Rape Capital of the World". If a woman in the company of her husband is not safe, imagine what is happening to single women in that country. Just today there is another news of a 15-year old victim of molestation from UP who has died in a hospital in Delhi. It is time for our State department and foreign ministries in major western countries to issue a travel warning to all future tourists to avoid India because of the ever-present threat of gang rape in India.
3: Manpreet Singh (Hyderabad, India), March 16, 2013, 9:49 AM.
The fact of what is happening currently in India and its media is that India is currently shouting at the peak of its voice that Italy played a double game with them by not returning the Italian army personnel who shot the Kerala sailors. The real fact is that this incident happened in international waters as reported by the international media (I don't trust Indian media and its concocted news) but Indian politicians are opportunistic and they forcefully held the Italian personnel to show how caring they are towards the poor Indian 'junta'. Another point which should be noted over here is that the Italian government has already paid a huge sum of money to compensate for the deaths. If the Indian media brings out the full story of the Swiss woman's gang rape, then India thinks it will not be able to garner the support abroad for its Italian sailors' case.
4: Jacob Messina (New York, USA), March 16, 2013, 11:37 AM.
A number of countries have already issued urgent travel advisories over India. So has Switzerland. And Italy. It'll hurt India's reputation, they say? Na-aa-ah! Not a bit. How do you hurt the reputation of a nation already known for its corruption and hooligans? Not to worry -- India's reputation will remain intact.
5: Kanwarjeet Singh (USA), March 16, 2013, 1:14 PM.
Recently, one of my American bosses was very optimistic about change happening in India, reading all those stories about protests for the rape victim in Delhi. He was a bit surprised when I gave him a cold look. Here was my explanation: "Mark, be ready to be grossly disappointed. This is going to get ugly real soon. We know India, it has not changed in 3000 years; do not expect anything for another three millennia. People who pray to stones have hearts and souls of stone. Also what else would you expect when one of the most common and revered idols of the people of the land is a penis (lingam)?"
6: Kuldeep (Crawley, United Kingdom), March 16, 2013, 4:55 PM.
Rape ... that is standard in India.
7: Guri Singh (Oakland, California, USA), March 17, 2013, 5:22 AM.
It is sad that this has happened to yet another woman. The truth is nothing will change in the macro level. Indian movies and media are pushing sexual perversions and distortions to the population. Rape is now part of Indian culture. Most women are raped in India, do you really think that women who are married off by arranged marriage have any say as to whether they want sex or not? No one asks them, "Honey, do you feel like making love tonight?" or "Should we make a baby tonight?" These stories will come and go ... it only gets worse from here. Sorry, but this is the reality that India is.
8: Kulwant Singh (U.S.A.), March 17, 2013, 6:55 AM.
India's practice of sweeping inconvenient truths under the rug is coming to haunt them. The skeletons have started to rot and the rest of the world is beginning to smell the stench. The smell of a corrupt and immoral society is too strong to cover up with the perfume of your "Incredible India" campaign.
9: Gurteg Singh (New York, USA), March 17, 2013, 7:33 AM.
The Washington Post, in its story on the Swiss woman's rape, mentions that since the outcry over the gang-rape in Delhi in December, 2012, nothing has changed. On the contrary, the capital witnessed 150 rapes in the first 45 days of this year. Madhya Pradesh, ruled by the Hindu religious fundamentalist party, RSS, has the highest incidents of rapes in the country and in 2011 alone there had been 3,381 rapes reported, of which more than 300 were gang-rapes.
10: Rosalia Scalia (Baltimore, Maryland, USA), March 18, 2013, 7:22 PM.
What is astonishing to me is that in the cases that did get publicity, the women weren't alone -- they were with men who were outnumbered and who couldn't protect them. In the past, a woman with a man could feel somewhat safe. It seems that this is no longer the case in India. So not only is it dangerous for a woman, but also for her significant other if he is traveling with a woman. Thus no one is really safe in India, or so it would seem.