New Delhi: A Brazilian biker who was gangraped in Jharkhand’s Dumka Friday had travelled across numerous countries over the last five years — including Taliban-ruled Afghanistan — before coming to India last July.
On Friday, the 28-year-old woman, who is originally from Brazil but has a Spanish passport, was assaulted and gangraped by seven men in Jharkhand Friday night, while her husband, who was travelling with her, was also beaten up. An investigation is underway and four people have been arrested so far.
The assault occurred when the couple, who were on their way to Nepal, had camped near Kurumahat’s Hansdiha market in Dumka.
ThePrint reached officials at the Spanish embassy for a comment via email. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
The motorcyclist’s Instagram posts bear testimony to her many travels. Riding a lightweight adventure bike called the Ténéré 700, the woman and her partner spent the last five years travelling the world — across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
“Hello India! After almost five years of travelling the world and more than 150,000km, the time has come to meet. We have heard a lot about you. For the moment, we could see that you are difficult, we will have to adapt quite a lot. But you also have your good side, and I know that you are going to blow us away with it,” the motorcycle enthusiast said in a post on Instagram last July when she and her partner crossed from Pakistan to India.
The couple has traveled over 1,53,000 km during their five-year bike tour. They have covered over 63 countries together.
Before coming to India, the couple biked across mountain areas in Pakistan for three months including the Khunjerab Pass, Karakoram Road, and Nanga Parbat. They also visited Taliban-ruled Pakistan and posted a video of how locals reacted to a woman riding a bike.
They later took a selfie with about ten men from the Taliban, one of whom was holding a rifle.
During their travels in India over the last few months, they visited Spiti Valley, close to the Tibet border, the Karni Mata Temple (or rat temple) in Bikaner, Jaipur, parts of south India, and played with groundhogs near Pangong Lake located near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, the woman’s posts showed.
Other countries visited by the biker couple include Sri Lanka, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Greece, New Zealand, Austria, Czech Republic, Morocco, UK, France, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Spain and Tunisia.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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