New Delhi/Dumka: The four men arrested on charges of gangrape of a Spanish biker and robbing her and her partner in Jharkhand’s Dumka, attacked her “with the intent to rape”, ThePrint has learnt from sources in the state police.
The accused were Sunday produced in a Dumka court and sent to judicial custody.
The incident occurred Friday at Dumka’s Kurmahat, some 400 km from the state capital Ranchi, between 7.30 pm and 10 pm. According to police sources, the four rape accused, who also assaulted the 28-year-old biker’s partner, are local residents.
One of the accused claims to be a minor, sources further said. Three others are still absconding.
The woman, who is originally from Brazil but has a Spanish passport, and her partner were on their way to Nepal and had stopped for the night and set up camp at Kurmahat’s Hansdiha market.
According to senior police officers, during questioning, the suspects admitted to having attacked the couple with an “intent to rape” the woman and had also confessed to the gangrape. A source said the accused claimed to be between 16 and 30 years of age, adding that the police were verifying their ages.
“They (the suspects) took away a watch, Rs 10,000 cash, and a ring,” this source said. “One of the arrested suspects has said that he is 16 years old. We are verifying their claims. The medical reports are awaited and documents are being verified.”
Meanwhile, Dumka Superintendent of Police Pitamber Singh Kherwar told ThePrint that the Crime Investigation Department was working on the case. “Forensic Teams are collecting all evidence from the crime spot. All technical evidence is also being looked at,” he said.
The woman is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital in Dumka.
The incident caused uproar in the Jharkhand assembly Saturday after Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to corner the Champai Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha government over it.
‘Thought we were going to die’
The woman vlogger had shared her ordeal in a video on social media.
“Something has happened to us that we wouldn’t wish on anyone. Seven men have raped me, they have beaten us and robbed us, although not many things because what they wanted (was) to rape me. We are in the hospital with the police. It happened tonight here in India,” the woman had said in her post.
“My face looks like this, but it’s not what hurts me the most. I thought we were going to die. Thank God we are alive,” she said in yet another social media post Sunday.
Her partner, meanwhile, shared his own experience in a separate post.
“My mouth is destroyed but she (his partner) is worse than me. They have hit me with the helmet several times, with a stone on the head several times. Thank goodness she was wearing a jacket that stopped the blows a little,” he said.
The couple had entered India via Pakistan in July last year and were making their way to Nepal. The woman had in a social media post then said that they had been to 63 countries and covered 153,000 km in five years in their world tour.
“Hello India, after almost 5 years travelling the world and more than 150,000 km, the time has come to meet, we have heard a lot about you, for the moment we could see that you are difficult, we will have to adapt quite a lot, but you also have your good side, and I know that you gonna blow us away with it,” the woman had said.
It was while they were in Turkiye that they decided to travel to India. “I remember a few years ago, still travelling in Turkey, we thought when would we arrive in India, we set it as a ‘goal’ and finally here we are, 5 years and 160 thousand kilometres later,” she wrote in yet another post.
While on their India leg, the couple had already been to Leh-Ladakh, Shimla, Agra, and Kanyakumari, among other places.
The woman’s social media posts showed that the couple intended to go to Australia next and that they had also visited Sri Lanka.
With inputs from Niraj Sinha
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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