Four arrested after Spanish blogger on India motorcycle tour gang-raped

The couple had set up a tent to pass the night in Jharkhand state’s Dumka as seven men attacked them.

Indian authorities have arrested four people suspected of being part of a group that gangraped a Spanish tourist and assaulted her partner.

The woman – whose identity was not revealed by the authorities – is a travel blogger with more than 200,000 followers on Instagram.

She was travelling with her partner in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand when the attack happened on Friday night.

The couple had stopped their motorbikes and set up a tent to pass the night in the state’s Dumka district before a group of seven men attacked them.

All the members of the group have been identified and the remaining suspects will be arrested “soon”, Jharkhand police chief Ajay Kumar Singh told The Indian Express newspaper.

“They had beaten us and robbed us, although not many things [were taken] because what they wanted was to rape me,” the 28-year-old woman said in an Instagram post.

In another post, her male partner said he was hit several times in the head with a helmet and that his “mouth is destroyed”.

A patrol car rescued the duo late on Friday night after the assault and escorted them to a local hospital.

The couple were touring South Asia and had concluded a trip to Sri Lanka before the Indian leg of their journey.

Sexual violence targeting women is common in India, with women from minority tribal communities being particularly at risk. Taboos around speaking up about the crime and low conviction rates of suspects add to the problem.

An average of nearly 90 rapes were reported in India every day, meaning one woman was raped every 18 minutes, in 2022, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, which recorded 31,516 rape cases that year.

Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh states recorded the highest number of cases.