Indian police have arrested four suspects and are hunting three more after a Spanish travel blogger was gang-raped and her husband assaulted while camping in a remote area.
The couple, Vincente and Fernanda, who run popular Instagram page Vuelta Al Mundo En Moto (Around The World By Motorbike) opened up on their ordeal in a harrowing video from hospital on March 1. Both had visible facial injuries.
But in a new video on Sunday the pair insisted that India is a “great country”, thanked the police for their assistance, and told their 200,000 followers that it was “worth visiting”.
“Do not think that India is like that, because it is not true. India is a country with many good people,” Vincente said.
“Indians are good people. We have collided with some undesirables,” 31-year-old Fernanda added.
The couple had sent up a tent in a forest in the Dumka in the eastern state of Jharkhand, a popular tourist destination, when they were attacked by seven young men.
“They beat us. They put a knife to my neck, and told me they were going to kill me,” Vincente said in one of the earlier videos
“Fernanda was raped. Seven of them. Seven men.”
Police said four of the suspects had been arrested and all have confessed.
“The others involved will soon be arrested, as we have received their names,” a police spokesman said.
According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, there were almost 90 rapes a day reported across the country in 2022, with Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh recording the highest number of cases.
In 2018, a 33-year-old Latvian tourist was gang-raped and murdered after travelling to Kerala for a yoga retreat. Her headless corpse was found hanging upside down from a tree in a forest. Police said she had been drugged by her attackers.
