Eight suspects arrested for attack and rape of a Spanish tourist in India

Indian police said this Tuesday that all the suspects involved in the attack and rape of a Spanish woman and her partner last Friday in northeastern India have been arrested. “We have arrested everyone involved in the case,” Pitambar Singh Kherwar, superintendent of police in Dumka, the remote region of Jharkhand state where the incident occurred, told Efe.

Four more suspects were arrested last night, Kherwal said, taking the total number of people involved in the crime to eight.

A pair of experienced travelers who have been traveling the world on motorcycles for many years had pitched a tent in a field in a village in Dumka to spend the night last Friday when they were attacked by a group of people around midnight.

The case has attracted considerable media attention, partly because it involves foreigners, which is why the police formed two special investigation teams to gather all possible evidence.

Additionally, the Jharkhand High Court ordered top state officials in charge of the investigation, the regional home minister and the police chief of Dumka district, where the attack took place, to respond by March 7.

As of now, the case is in the subordinate court, which will be able to conclude the case after the police investigation is completed within the next 30 days as per judicial procedure.

In this sense, the Spanish couple went before the police this morning to testify for the last time, before getting on their motorcycles and embarking on a trip of almost two days to Nepal, their last destination before returning to Spain.

The law establishes harsh penalties for rape, most of which are non-bailable. Under the Indian Penal Code, the punishment for rape is a minimum of 10 years in prison and for gang rape, the punishment is up to life imprisonment.