Two men have been arrested in India in connection with the alleged rape of an Israeli and a local woman.
The Israeli woman and her homestay operator were said to be stargazing with three male travellers in Koppal town in southern Karnataka state on Thursday night.
Police said three men on a motorbike approached them and asked for money. After an argument, the men pushed the male travellers into a nearby canal before sexually assaulting the two women.
Ram L Arasiddi, a local police official, said one of travellers had drowned and his body was recovered on Saturday. The other two men swam to safety, he said.
Koppal is about 217 miles (350 kilometres) from Bengaluru. Arasiddi said police had set up a special investigation team that arrested two of the suspects on Saturday. They were being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder, gang rape and robbery, he said.
Sexual assaults on women have become a prominent issue in India, where police recorded 31,516 rape cases in 2022, a 20% increase from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. The real figure is believed to be much higher given the stigma surrounding sexual violence and victims’ lack of faith in police.
Rape and sexual violence have been under the spotlight since the 2012 gang rape and killing of a 23-year-old student on a Delhi bus. The attack galvanised huge protests and inspired lawmakers to set up fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases and stiffen penalties.
The rape law was amended in 2013, criminalising stalking and voyeurism and lowering the age at which a person can be tried as an adult from 18 to 16. The government approved the death penalty in 2018 for people convicted of raping children under age 12.
High-profile cases involving foreign visitors have drawn international attention to the issue. Last year, in a video that was later deleted, a Spanish tourist said his wife had been raped in northern India, while an Indian-American woman said she had been raped at a hotel in Delhi. A British tourist was raped in front of her partner in Goa in 2022.
