Police say Indian gang raped twice in hours

A young woman was raped by two apparently unrelated groups of men only hours apart on Christmas night, officials say.

The incident comes only days after the anniversary of the fatal gang rape of a woman on a bus in Delhi [Reuters]

Ten people in India have been arrested after a 21-year-old woman was gang-raped twice in one night by two apparently unrelated groups of men, according to police officials.

Six of them have been charged with gang-raping the woman on the evening of December 24, a police officer told Associated Press news agency on Friday, adding that a juvenile male was additionally detained for not informing the police about the crime.

Officer Monika Bharadwaj said the arrests were made on Thursday after the woman complained that she was abducted and raped while visiting a friend in Karaikal, a port city in Pondicherry state. 

After nearly three hours of captivity in the first case, she was released and called for help only to be gang-raped by an apparently separate group of seven men, the official said.

Police have been questioning the accused to find out whether they knew each other or belonged to two separate groups, Bhardwaj said.

Victim hospitalised

The Times of India, a national newspaper, said police had registered preliminary cases of abduction, gang rape and criminal intimidation against the accused. The suspects are yet to appear at court.

The woman has been admitted to hospital where police was also to record her statement, local media reports said.

The assault came days after India marked the anniversary of the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in the capital of New Delhi that triggered nationwide protests.

The outrage spurred the government to adopt more stringent laws that doubled prison terms for rape to 20 years and criminalised voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women.

Source: News Agencies