Spanish tourist gang-raped in India's Jharkhand state

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Seven people raped a Spanish tourist who was on a motorbike trip with her husband in eastern India in Jharkhand state's Dumka district on Friday night.

The accused also tortured the victim and her husband after the gang-rape.

An average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in India in 2022, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. However, large numbers go unreported due to prevailing stigmas around victims and a lack of faith in police investigations.

Convictions remain rare, with cases getting stuck for years in India's clogged-up criminal justice system. The notorious gang rape and murder of an Indian student made global headlines in 2012.

Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, was raped, assaulted and left for dead by five men and a teenager on a bus in New Delhi in December that year. The horrific crime shone an international spotlight on India's high levels of sexual violence and sparked weeks of protests, and eventually a change in the law to introduce the death penalty for rape.

On the other hand, the Indian police produced three accused in court. "We have formed a team to hunt the remaining suspects," senior local police officer Pitamber Singh Kherwar told AFP.