NEW DELHI, March 16, (Agencies): 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. The attack comes three months after the fatal gang-rape of a woman aboard a New Delhi bus outraged Indians.

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, 39, 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. Indian law does not allow rape victims to be identified publicly to protect victims from the stigma that is attached to rape in the conservative country.

The attack comes just months after thousands took to the streets to protest against India’s treatment of women following the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in December.
“We are deeply shocked by this tragic incident suffered by a Swiss citizen and her partner in India,” the Swiss foreign ministry in Bern said in a statement.

The Swiss ministry said its diplomats in India were in contact with local authorities and that it hoped the attackers would be “swiftly identified and would appear before a court to answer for their actions”.
The couple were on their way to the tourist destination of Agra, home to the iconic Taj Mahal monument, in northern India when they stopped to camp for the night.

“The victims, who belong to Switzerland, put up a tent to stay overnight” in a forested area near a village when the attack occurred, Afzal said.

Indian media reports said the men were wielding sticks when they attacked the couple around 50 kilometers (35 miles) from Orchha, a popular foreign tourist destination in Madhya Pradesh.

Swiss Ambassador Linus von Castelmur has spoken to the victim and assured her “of all possible help”, the Press Trust of India reported.

Reacting to the attack, the state’s opposition leader Ajay Singh said it “had brought a bad name to Madhya Pradesh at the international level”.

In 2003, a 36-year-old female Swiss diplomat was abducted in the car park of a popular New Delhi auditorium, driven away by two men and raped. She was freed later nearby. No one has been convicted for that attack.

Concern remains high in India over the safety and status of women and girls in the country of 1.2 billion.
The national Congress-led government has been under heavy pressure to step up legal protection for India’s women following the December attack on the student who died from internal injuries after being savagely assaulted by six men.

Last Monday, Ram Singh, one of six accused on trial over the December assault was found hanged in his high-security jail cell in New Delhi. Police suspect he hanged himself, but his family says he was murdered.

Under a new bill approved by India’s cabinet earlier in the week, rapists face a minimum 20-year jail term and the death penalty if the victim dies from her injuries or is left in a persistent vegetative state.