Delhi
Police has booked five men, including a tour guide, in connection with the
alleged gang rape of an American woman at a five-star hotel in Connaught Place.
The travel guide is a resident of south Delhi and is currently accompanying a
group of tourists to a few places outside the city .
Meanwhile,
external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she had asked Delhi Police
to take necessary actions against the perpetrators and requested the India's
ambassador to the US to speak to the woman.
Police
had initiated an inquiry after they received an email from a US-based NGO about
the alleged gang rape. On Friday night, the survivor had sent via email a
complain to police asking them to register an FIR against the five men. In the
mail, she said that she had come to India, along with a group of tourists.
She also
claimed she had planned her tour after consulting a US-based travel agent. The
agency contacted its partner firms in India, which had booked the hotel and
employed the prime accused as her tour guide.
The
survivor wrote that on the second day of her visit, she had given a copy of the
card key access of her room to the guide so that he could plan the journey .
On the
day of the incident, he had come to the her room with a water bottle. She said
that after having water from the bottle, she started feeling dizzy .Then, four
other men—a hotel ward boy , a youth whom the prime accused had introduced to
her as his cousin and two others (they managed a tourist bus) — entered the
room and locked it.
The tour
guide asked the survivor to lie down on the bed after which she fell
unconscious, she alleged. The suspects then took turns to rape her. When she
woke up, she found the prime accused in the room. He threatened her with dire
consequences if she raised an alarm or informed anyone about the incident, she
told in her mail to police. The main accused also threatened to release her
photographs on websites if she did not comply with his demands. The survivor
alleged he raped her the next day too.
The woman
said that she was so traumatized over the next two days that she did not leave
her room. Later, she cut short her trip and returned to Pennsylvania. “We began
an inquiry after receiving the email from the NGO. A chronology of events was
established. We then contacted the NGO and reached the complainant who wrote
back to us. Following this, a case was registered against the men,“ said joint
commissioner Depender Pathak, the new spokesperson of Delhi Police.
