NEW DELHI, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Indian police have arrested a man on charges of raping a 70-year-old French national in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi town.
"The accused was working as a private security guard at the hotel where the French woman had been staying. He was produced in a city court and remanded in police custody for interrogation about the crime," a senior police official said Saturday.
The woman has been a regular visitor to Varanasi, which is one of the holiest cities of Hindus and draws thousands of foreign visitors every year. For the past 11 months, she had been staying in the city and working at a center for disabled children.
The incident took place earlier this week when the security guard entered the hotel room of the woman when she was fast asleep, beat her up and then forced himself on her before fleeing with her mobile phone, according to police.
The woman is currently undergoing treatment at a local hospital, and doctors treating her have said that she is out of danger.
Sexual assaults against women are on the rise in India. The government has brought in stricter laws against such crimes in the wake of massive nation-wide protests over the brutal and fatal gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student by six men on a moving bus in 2012.
While four of the men were recently sentenced to death by India's Supreme Court, the main accused allegedly committed suicide in his prison cell during the trial while the sixth accused being a juvenile at the time of crime was released after spending three years in a remand home.
