British woman raped in Delhi hotel; 2 held

PTI

New Delhi

Delhi police have arrested two men, one of whom allegedly raped a British woman at a hotel in Mahipalpur in the national capital after befriending her online, and another man who molested her when she tried to raise an alarm, a police official said on Thursday.

Following the arrests, the police intimated the British High Commission about the incident, which took place on the night of March 11. 

The woman travelled to India a month ago and stayed in Maharashtra for some time before visiting Goa. She came to Delhi on March 11 to meet Kailash, 24, whom she met on Instagram recently, said the police official.

The British national had booked a room at a hotel in the area and had a few drinks with the man before he allegedly raped her and left. When she tried to raise an alarm with the hotel staffers, one of them, identified as the hotel’s 27-year-old housekeeper, touched her inappropriately in the hotel lift, the official said. 

On March 12, she went to a hospital following which the police learnt about the incident and registered a case under Sections 64 (rape), 75 (sexual harassment), 127(2) (wrongful confinement) and 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt) of BNS.

The case was registered at the Vasant Kunj North police station.

“We arrested the accused within few hours of the incident. It was easier to track him since he had submitted documents in the hotel when he came to meet her there,” said the police official. The accused were produced in a court and remanded to judicial custody.

The police said the survivor first spoke to the accused on the social media platform a month-and-a-half ago following which they started to chat frequently.

Kailash, a resident of east Delhi, the police said, struggled to speak English language and used a translation app to communicate with her.

Police teams are now checking the hotel’s CCTV footage to establish the sequence of the events leading to the alleged crime.

A special team, led by an ACP and under the supervision of the DCP, was formed to probe the case and have seized the accused’s cell phone to verify if he contacted any other women on social media.