Two men in southern India were arrested in connection to the gang rape of two women and the drowning death of a man, officials said Saturday.
An Israeli tourist and her homestay host were stargazing with three male travelers – an American and two Indians – in Koppal town in southern Karnataka state on Thursday night, police official Ram L. Arasiddi said.
According to an initial investigation, three men on a motorbike approached them, asking for money. Following arguments, the three men pushed the male travelers into a nearby water canal and sexually assaulted the two women, Arasiddi said.
He said one of the Indian tourists drowned and his body was recovered on Saturday, adding that the American and another Indian swam to safety.
Koppal is about 217 miles from Bengaluru, India’s startup and technology powerhouse.
Arasiddi said police set up a special investigation team that arrested two out of the three suspects on Saturday. They were being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder, gang rape and robbery, he said.
Sexual assaults on women have become familiar in India, where police recorded 31,516 rape cases in 2022, a 20% increase from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. That’s an average of about 90 rapes per day, CBS News previously reported, and the real figure is believed to be far higher due to the stigma surrounding sexual violence and victims’ lack of faith in police.
Rape and sexual violence have been under the spotlight since the brutal 2012 gang rape and killing of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus. The attack galvanized massive protests and inspired lawmakers to order the creation of fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases and stiffen penalties.
The rape law was amended in 2013, criminalizing stalking and voyeurism and lowering the age at which a person can be tried as an adult from 18 to 16. The government in 2018 approved the death penalty for people convicted of raping children under age 12.
Despite stringent laws, it’s rare for more than a few weeks to pass without another brutal sexual assault being reported.
High-profile cases involving foreign visitors have drawn international attention to the issue. A man who killed and raped an Irish tourist at a hotel in 2017 was found guilty in 2025 and sentenced to life in prison. Last year, in a video that was later deleted, a Spanish tourist said his wife was raped in northern India while an Indian-American woman said she was raped at a hotel in New Delhi. In 2022, a British tourist was raped in front of her partner in Goa.
In another high-profile case, doctors in hospitals across India went on strike after a trainee was raped and killed in August 2024. A police volunteer was found guilty of the crime, but avoided the death penalty, CBS News previously reported.
