Five Indian Men Arrested for Raping Japanese Young Woman: Reports

MOSCOW, January 4 (Sputnik) — Indian authorities have arrested five men responsible for capturing and raping a 22-year old Japanese scientist, temporarily living in the country, France24  reports.

Previously, the Indian officials announced that the police managed to arrest three perpetrators and was planning to continue the investigation.

The young woman was held hostage in an underground room in a village near the town of Bodh Gaya for three weeks, the Indian police said. She reportedly became friends with three Indian men in Kolkata shortly after she came to the country to learn the Buddhist culture. The men suggested she takes a trip to Bodh Gaya, considered the birthplace of Buddhism and an interesting tourist attraction. They also persuaded her to pay around $1,200 dollars for “the excursion”.

"The men managed to extort 76,000 rupees ($1,200) from her and convinced her to travel to Bodh Gaya with them in their car," the police representative said.

When she arrived in Bodh Gaya, she was locked in a basement, where she was constantly raped by the three men and two of their friends. The victim managed to run away from her rapists on December 26 and came to the city of Kolkata to report her case to police.

Sexual violence has posed a serious problem in India for a long time, with gang rapes being a common occurrence all across the country, according to the Guardian. Widely spread sexual harassment has compelled Indian authorities to adopt new legislation, introducing longer prison terms for sexual offenders and criminalizing human trafficking. However, the initiative has been inefficient, as it deals with symptoms of the problem and not its root causes, the newspaper reports.