Story highlights
The bus speeds past the woman's stop
Police: The bus driver and his helper take the woman somewhere
Five other men allegedly join in to assault the woman through the night
In an incident eerily similar to a sexual assault that sent shock waves worldwide, Indian police say a woman was gang-raped over the weekend by seven men after she boarded a bus at night.
Police have arrested all seven suspects, including the bus driver, after the alleged Friday night attack in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab state.
Just like a gang rape in New Delhi that sparked international outrage last month, the new attack occurred after the woman got on a bus.
The bus sped past her stop, police said. By that time, the woman was the only passenger.
The bus driver and his helper then took the married 29-year-old woman to an undisclosed address where five others joined the two men and raped her throughout the night, police said.
Read More: Challenges of being a woman in India
“They threatened me with a sharp edged weapon and did wrong things with me,” the victim told CNN’s sister station, CNN-IBN. “They kept me confined all through the night and forced me to do what they want.”
The next day, the suspects dropped her off at her village, where she informed her family and alerted police, according to authorities.
The alleged attack bears a similarity to a December 16 gang rape where attackers assaulted a woman after she boarded a bus. The men also brutally beat her and her male companion, robbed them of their belongings and later dumped them by the side of a road.
Both New Delhi and Gurdaspur are in northern India.
The latest incident in Gurdaspur has not spurred an outbreak of protests in the country and there was no immediate evidence of visible injuries to the woman, contrasting with the violent manner in which last month’s New Delhi victim was attacked.
The Delhi incident triggered rallies nationwide and an uproar over the treatment of women.
The badly beaten 23-year-old woman was flown to Singapore for treatment after the attack.
Watch video: Changing the male mindset on rape
She died about two weeks later while undergoing treatment.
Five men were charged with murder, rape and kidnapping, and face the death penalty if convicted. A juvenile court is determining the age of a sixth suspect, who claims to be 17 and not old enough to be tried as an adult.
At the time, the government pledged stronger laws against sexual assaults.
The number of reported rapes in India – a country where a cultural stigma keeps many victims from reporting the crime – has increased drastically, from 2,487 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011, according to official figures.
Most women in India have stories of sexual harassment and abuse on public transportation or on the streets, said Seema Sirohi, of the Indian Council on Global Relations.
Opinion: India’s rape problem needs a rewiring of society’s attitude
CNN’s Harmeet Shah Singh reported from New Delhi and Faith Karimi from Atlanta
