French vacationer sexually assaulted by India tour information throughout pilgrimage, police say

A French lady on pilgrimage within the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu was allegedly sexually assaulted by a neighborhood vacationer information who took her to a secluded spot for meditation.

In accordance with the police, a 42-year-old man named Venkatesan from Tiruvannamalai was arrested close to the Arunachaleswara temple after an investigation.

The person is accused of taking the girl, believed to be in her forties, to a secluded and restricted space on the Arunachala Hills in Tiruvannamalai underneath the pretext of meditation after which sexually assaulting her. Tiruvannamalai, a historic city in Tamil Nadu, about 190km southwest of capital Chennai, is famend for the Arunachaleswara temple, devoted to the Hindu deity Lord Shiva and the sacred Arunachala Hill.

Police reported that the girl, who arrived in Tiruvannamalai in January this yr and was staying at a non-public lodge, encountered Venkatesan whereas exploring completely different ashrams and pilgrimage spots.

On Monday, he allegedly led her to a restricted part of the hill overseen by the state forest division, falsely presenting it as an ideal meditation spot. It was there that the assault reportedly passed off.

The lady raised the alarm, drawing the eye of devotees and passers-by on the Girivalam path, a well-liked round route across the sacred hill, in response to The Indian Categorical.

The sufferer’s title has not been revealed to the general public to guard her privateness.

Tiruvannamalai’s superintendent of police, M Sudhakar, stated: “We fashioned particular groups to establish the suspect. There have been a number of witnesses who reported seeing the sufferer climbing the hills with a neighborhood man.

“We narrowed down the probe to 5 people who often work as vacationer guides, together with the accused. The sufferer recognized him as Venkatesan when he was paraded earlier than her.”

He added: “Venkatesan is in police custody and we’re probing if he engaged in comparable crimes previously.”

The lady has since been admitted to a district hospital for medical check-ups and a police probe is underway.

In 2018, a 21-year-old Russian vacationer was drugged and gang-raped in a service house in Tiruvannamalai.

The French lady’s sexual assault comes simply weeks after a 36-year-old British vacationer was allegedly raped and molested at a resort in Delhi’s Mahipalpur space. Police arrested two folks, one who reportedly befriended the girl on Instagram and was accused of rape, and one other, a resort employees member charged with molestation.

The alleged assault on the British vacationer occurred simply days after a 27-year-old Israeli traveller and her Indian homestay operator had been gang-raped close to a Unesco World Heritage web site in Karnataka.