Five men have been arrested in India, charged with kidnapping and repeatedly raping a Japanese female student. Two of the men arrested were brothers, Sajid Khan, 32, and his 25-year-old brother Jawed Khan.

BBC  Police in the eastern city of Calcutta say the assaults took place over a period of more than a month from 23 November and in at least two locations. They say an organized gang is suspected of targeting single women tourists. 

Pallav Kanti Ghosh, a Calcutta police commissioner, told BBC Hindi that two of the men – said to be brothers – approached the 23-year-old victim as tourist guides after she arrived in the city and checked into a hotel in an area popular with foreign tourists. 

“One of the men spoke very fluent Japanese,” he said.  “They said: ‘We are guides and want to take you sight-seeing.’ “They took her to Digha [a beach resort in West Bengal state] on 23 November. There they sexually assaulted her and robbed her of 76,000 rupees [£1,200] using her ATM card.”

She was then taken to Bodh Gaya, the holiest site of Buddhism and a major pilgrimage and tourist centre. “There, the men handed her over to other gang members,” Mr Ghosh said.  The woman was held captive for several weeks and the assaults continued, he said.

In late December she managed to escape and reach the city of Varanasi from where she travelled to Calcutta, lodging a complaint at the Japanese consulate on Dec. 26th.  Mr Ghosh said three of the men were arrested near Bodh Gaya and two in Calcutta. Police are searching for other members of what he called an organized gang of (Muslim) rapists.