Posted on 10/16/2003 5:51:39 PM PDT by angel90210
By ANDREW WANG, Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI - A Swiss diplomat was abducted and raped by two men as she left the International Film Festival in the Indian capital, New Delhi.
Police mounted a citywide search for the suspects Thursday, offered a $1,110 reward for information leading to their capture, and tightened security for the festival.
"We do not know how this can happen in a city like Delhi," Press Trust of India (news - web sites) news agency quoted Swiss Ambassador Walter P. Gyger as saying. "We hope the criminals are arrested soon and punished."
The woman, who worked in the consular wing of the Swiss Embassy, returned to Switzerland on Wednesday night, the embassy reported.
The men forced the diplomat into her car at knifepoint in the parking lot of the Siri Fort Auditorium on Tuesday night. One raped her while the other drove, police said.
Within an hour of the attack, two men assaulted an Indian documentary filmmaker, Akansha Joshi, in the same parking lot, kicking her and banging her head on the asphalt as she struggled. She said she threw her car keys into bushes, apparently delaying the attempted abduction until the arrival of an elderly couple frightened away the attackers.
"This was not an attempted robbery," Joshi said. "The sole objective of my assailants was to drive off in the car with me."
Police said Thursday they were not sure whether the two attacks were carried out by the same men.
On average, an Indian woman is raped every 34 minutes and there is more than one rape each day in New Delhi, according to government figures.
Give the perps a fair trial and a fast hanging.
India's population is at least 3 times that of the US, so it is equivalent to about 6000 per year in the US. I am sure our figure is well above that.
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