Two Dutch women raped, robbed in India

NEW DELHI - Two Dutch women on a world tour were repeatedly raped and robbed of their money and passports by two men posing as tourist guides, police said Saturday. One of the accused has been arrested.

The women, aged 24 and 23 years, reached India at the start of January this year with a view to tour several cities. They checked into a hotel in Paharganj in the heart of the capital.

The next day, at Connaught Place, the city centre, they met Yasir Atlaf and Omar Baktoo who claimed to be working for a government tourism agency and helped them get a SIM card for their mobile telephones.

They offered to take the women to Jammu and Kashmir, Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan at discounted rates, Additional Commissioner of Police Shankar Das said in a statement.

They took the unsuspecting women to an office in Karol Bagh here where a person identified as Ali charged them an exorbitant sum of money for what he said was a package tour, police said.

The women went to Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir and stayed in Baktoo’s houseboat with the men. It was there that the men seized their passports.

“Atlaf took away Rs.60,000 from one of them. The women later found that the men had also stolen her 200 euros and Rs.25,000,” Das said.

When they reached Gulmarg, the women realized they had been cheated and demanded their money back.

But the men, who had their passports, threatened to put them in trouble and forced the tourists to have sex with them over the next three or four days.

The women returned Jan 25 to Delhi, where they were again raped for nearly a week. Horrified that they did not even have their passports, the women succumbed to the men, Das said.

“The victims were medically examined and rape was confirmed. We have arrested Atlaf,” Das said. The officer said Atlaf, 23, one of the accused, was arrested recently.

According to police, Atlaf confessed to the crime, saying he earned his livelihood by cheating foreign nationals.