By IANS,
Chandigarh : A young German woman was allegedly abducted and molested by a group of youth in the city in the wee hours of Sunday, police said.
The police have registered a case against unidentified youth, who abducted the German woman from the city’s upscale Taj Hotel in the main commercial hub of Sector 17.
What has baffled the police is the fact that the woman was abducted in a Scorpio sports utility vehicle (SUV) from a high-security area of the city. The hotel complex has private and police security.
The police registered a case of attempt to rape, abduction, molestation, illegal confinement and other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against unidentified youth after the woman was dropped outside the house of her friend in Sector 20 Sunday evening in a Maruti car.
The victim told the police that she had come out of the hotel to smoke around 2 a.m. when a youth came to her. He and his friends then pushed her into a waiting vehicle where the youth stifled her mouth, she told the police.
The woman, who had come to the city with a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) based in Germany for his wedding, said the vehicle was driven for around two hours and she was taken to a room where the youth tried to rape her but she resisted. She claimed that she was molested, beaten and threatened by the youth.
“We are investigating the matter and shall be making a few arrests soon. The victim is also being medically examined,” assistant superintendent of police Madhur Verma said.
Police officials were facing difficulties in getting information from the victim as she could not properly communicate in English, an investigating officer said.
Police officials here told IANS that the German woman was in an inebriated state after a party at the hotel when she was abducted.
They said the vehicle in which the woman was taken away had been identified and raids were being conducted to arrest the accused youth. They added that a few people had also been rounded up in this connection.
A similar molestation and attempt to rape case involving a foreign national had rocked the city in 1994.
A French national, Katia, was also abducted from eatery in Sector 22 in 1994 by Gurkirat Singh, the grandson of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.