GOA, India – “India is a very spiritual and magical place,” gushed Paris Hilton when she visited for the first time last year, expressing a widely held view. Many visitors to India believe that the people are gentle, welcoming and that it is a safe place to travel.
But their perception is wildly at odds with the grim picture portrayed in the pages of India’s national papers and on its television screens on almost a daily basis.
Last Tuesday, a 30-year-old American tourist says she was gang raped as she hitch hiked in the early hours of the morning near Manali, a popular tourist spot in the mountainous northern state of Himachal Pradesh. The attack came just days after a 21-year-old Irish aid worker was raped in Kolkata – an attack which took place, according to the police, after she had been drugged by a local businessman. Continue reading.
