Three men were arrested on Saturday after the gang rape of a Spanish tourist who was traveling with her husband on a motorcycle in a remote region of eastern India, local media reported.
The attack happened on Friday evening in Dumka district in the eastern state of Jharkhand, where the couple had stopped to spend the night in a tent.
The Spanish tourist was able to reach a patrolling police van around 11 p.m. and was taken to hospital for treatment, police officer Pitamber Singh Kherwar told The Times of India newspaper.
Mr Kherwar said police were searching for more suspects after arresting three people in connection with the attack.
The victim is being treated at a local hospital in Dumka and investigations are ongoing.
According to official national data, an average of nearly 90 rapes were reported per day in India in 2022.
However, due to stigmatization of victims and lack of trust in police investigations, many cases go unreported.
Convictions remain rare as prosecutions have stalled for years in India's overburdened criminal justice system.
The gang rape and murder of an Indian student on a bus in the Indian capital with incredible brutality shocked the world in 2012.
Jyoti Singh, a physiotherapy student, and her friend Awindra Pratap Pandey were returning from the cinema on the evening of December 16, 2012, when they boarded a bus, thinking it would take them to their destination.
But the bus driver and his five accomplices, including a 17-year-old teenager, took them on board to their horror. Awindra was brutally beaten and Jyoti was raped and tortured with extreme cruelty by the six assailants.
The attackers then threw the two bloodied victims from the bus to the side of the road. Singh survived long enough to identify his six attackers.
Five adults and one juvenile were charged with 13 crimes two months later, and four men were hanged in 2020. The main defendant was found dead in his prison cell a month after the indictment.
The death of Jyoti, nicknamed “Nirbhaya” (“fearless”) by the Indian press, sparked widespread protests and forced the government to impose harsher punishments for rapists and the death penalty for repeat offenders.