Narinder Nanu / AFP - Getty Images, file

Indian students holds placards as they shout-slogans during an anti-rape rally in New Delhi during a protest in December 2012.

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.

The attacks have reignited the debate over whether India has apparently become a more dangerous place to be a woman. What has changed in the culture? Is urbanization to blame? A change in modern morals? Or lax law enforcement? 

Brutal attack
The debate over violence against women has gripped the nation since December 2012 when a 23-year old Indian medical student named Jyoti Singh was brutally gang raped.

Singh was traveling home with a male friend after an early evening visit to the movies. Tricked onto a bus by a group of young men, she was raped so savagely that her intestines were torn from her body. She died on December 29, but not before identifying the men she said attacked her and becoming a symbol for women across the country of their daily struggle against violence.

Women - and some men - poured onto the streets to protest, clashing violently with the police, who many blame for failing to take rape seriously. 

The Indian government, rattled by the ferocity of the protests, rushed through new laws making provision for tougher sentences - including the death sentence - for rapists. The trial of the defendants in the Singh case is ongoing. 

But the government is battling sweeping changes in Indian society, largely due to rapid urbanization, which is having a profound impact on the traditional family structures as men migrate to the cities in search of work, leaving behind parents, wives and children.

Urbanization fueling crime?
“Migrant workers are living together with no female influence, just a bunch of men living together. They are developing a new cult of masculinity, being driven by the pornography industry,” said Ruchira Gupta, an Indian women’s rights activist and Emmy award winning documentary maker. 

Piyal Adhikary / EPA

Officers investigate the crime scene Monday where a 20-year-old girl was dragged into a walled compound, raped by at least six persons and murdered in Barasat, India.

“India is now the third largest user of pornography in the world and the porn narrative here is one of sexual violence and domination, which is sending signals to men to associate sex with violence.  They are attacking women all over the country, whatever their age or color,” said Gupta, who also lectures at New York University’s Center of Global Affairs.

She also warned that tourists should not take their safety for granted because “there is also a backlash against Westernization, which is embodied in the white female.”

Rape has soared in India in recent years.  Recorded rapes have risen by 873 percent since independence in 1947 and there were 24,206 rape cases in 2011, according to government figures. At the same time rape convictions fell by 44.3 percent between 1973 and 2011. 

Women’s empowerment activist Kathleen Suneja also cited urbanization as a driving force behind the rising rape figures.

“Urbanization has made Manali a high crime area and women are as likely to be raped in Delhi as in Manali,” she said, referring to the mountainous tourist destination where the American woman was attacked.

She blamed lax law enforcement and called for special police units to protect women's rights and prosecute violent crimes against women.

“India needs the equivalent of the [U.S.] Violence Against Women's Act,” she said.

Some activists in India hoped that Singh’s death would prove to be a turning point in attitudes towards women, yet the rapes have continued.

In March a Swiss tourist was gang raped while camping in Madhya Pradesh state. After the alleged assailants arrest, the state’s home minister Umashankar Gupta created embarrassment over comments that seemed to blame the victim for the attack.  “The rape of the Swiss national is unfortunate, but foreign travelers should inform the police about their movement so that they can be provided with adequate protection. They often don't follow state's rules," Gupta said.

In the same month a British woman told police she jumped from her first floor hotel window in Agra - near the country’s most famous tourist site, the Taj Mahal – because she feared being sexually assaulted by the hotel manager after persistent knocking on her door at 4 a.m. The woman injured her foot in the fall, but was otherwise not badly hurt. The hotel manager denied the allegations. 

Sajjad Hussain / AFP - Getty Images, file

Indian protesters hold candles during an anti-rape rally in New Delhi on Dec.29,2012, after the death of a gang rape victim.

The following month, the crowds were back on the street to protest after a 5-year-old girl was raped over a four day period in the Gandhi Nagar neighborhood of Delhi. Anger was fueled by the revelation that came out in an official investigation that police had tried to pay off her father with $38 dollars to drop charges. 

A spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs defended the government’s actions Friday, saying they had "taken all necessary action" to address the issue of rape and the reporting of rape by victims, including the introduction of new legislation.  

The spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs said that in the aftermath of the Jyoti Singh rape case, the government had set up a commission of investigation headed by retired High Court judge Usha Mehra. The commission found that there were shortcomings in the police handling of the case, and called for reforms which included better police training to handle complaints of rape more sensitively. The spokesman also said the commission branded the response of the police to victims' complaints as "callous.” Police have responded to the criticism by introducing reforms and training officers to be more sensitive to women’s complaints  

But police aren’t the only ones who have come under fire for their response to the rape issue.

Despite the fact that the most powerful person in the country, Sonia Gandhi, is a woman; that several states are ruled by autocratic female chief ministers; and the mother figure is deeply revered in Indian culture, there is little sense of sisterhood at the top.

Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal’s chief minister, notoriously dismissed a gang rape victim’s allegations as an attempt to undermine her government and earlier this year she claimed rising rapes were a result of a growing population and a youth with modern views.

Related:

• Calif. victim of Indian gang-rape identifies three suspects
• Lawyer: Delhi rape suspect beaten, poisoned in prison
• Defense attorney blames victim in India gang-rape
• Female tourists shun India after gang-rape, murder

This story was originally published on Fri Jun 7, 2013 2:56 PM EDT

Police in India on Thursday were preparing to charge three men detained in connection with the gang-rape of a 31-year-old California woman who hitched a ride in a truck in the early hours of Tuesday.

Investigators obtained a cellphone number believed to belong to the principal suspect and used it to track down the men, said B. Kamal Kumar, director of police in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

“With the help of this number we check out the previous calls,” he said. “We contacted the previous numbers. It helped a lot in tracing the [suspects].”

Kumar said the victim identified all three men in a police lineup.

AFP - Getty Images

Indian police stop a tourist bus Thursday at a checkpoint put in place following the rape of a U.S. tourist in Manali.

“Two of them were locals and our team of special police found them,” Kumar said. “The other fellow was trying to escape through a nearby town about 60 kilometers (37 miles) away. He was caught at a checkpoint.”

The victim, earlier said by police to have been between 35 and 40, had been visited by U.S. diplomatic officials and was “all right,” Kumar said.

It was unclear what city she was from or how long she had been in India when the attack occurred. The resort town of Manali, where she was staying, is known for its lush valleys and towering mountains.

After she was picked up in the truck, promised a ride to her hotel, she was driven to a remote area and gang-raped, police said.

The suspects will be taken in front of a magistrate to be officially identified and formally charged, Kumar said, adding that he expected that to happen Thursday afternoon.

The attack has drawn further international attention to the issue of serious sexual assaults in India.

Several other sex crimes in the country have been highly publicized, particularly the fatal December gang-rape of a 23-year-old student by six men on a bus in New Delhi.

That attack set off angry protests across the capital and in other cities.

Kumar said he would advise female tourists to use extreme caution when traveling in India.

“She has taken a lift in a truck at 1:15 at night,” he said, adding that she had been visiting friends and was on her way back to her hotel but could not find a taxi. “I’m warning all tourists who are coming here. She should have avoided the truck. If she wanted any help, she should seek police.”

Related:

• Lawyer: Delhi rape suspect beaten, poisoned in prison
• Defense attorney blames victim in India gang-rape
• Female tourists shun India after gang-rape, murder

Saurabh Das / AP file

Indian students shout slogans as they hold placards demanding stringent punishment to rapists during a protest in New Delhi, India on April 23.

An American woman was gang-raped after accepting a ride in India, where previous sex attacks have sparked angry protests and scared off female tourists.

Police said three men were being questioned Tuesday about the attack in a resort town in the foothills of the Himalayas, which is certain to focus new attention on the plight of women in India.

The attack echoes a number of other recent sex crimes in India, including the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student by six men on a bus in New Delhi in December – a crime that caused a wave of angry public demonstrations.

“The three suspects have not yet been formally arrested but the investigating team is hopeful there will be a breakthrough in the case very soon,” said B. Kamal Kumar, director of police in the state of Himachal Pradesh.

The woman was attacked after she accepted a lift by a group of men in a truck in Manali, about 300 miles north of New Delhi, according to an Associated Press report published by the Hindustan Times.

Kumar confirmed that the victim was an American citizen between the ages of 35 and 40, but was unable to say where she was from.

“This is a very unfortunate case,” he said. “A female inspector has been added to the investigation team out of consideration of the comfort of the victim.”

On Monday, police in Kolkata arrested a local businessman for allegedly drugging and raping an Irish charity worker after her birthday party, The Associated Press said.

Earlier this year, a study in India found that the number of female tourists had fallen amid publicity over the attacks and concern about India's attitudes to sex crimes.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in New Delhi said: "We are in contact with authorities but due to issues of privacy we have no further comment."

Related:

• Female tourists steering clear of India after sex attacks
• 5 accused men plead not guilty in India gang rape

This story was originally published on Tue Jun 4, 2013 9:37 AM EDT

The number of female tourists visiting India has fallen by more than a third since the gang-rape in which a 23-year-old student died, according to business leaders there.

Visitor numbers have dropped in all parts of the country, not just in New Delhi, where December’s attack took place, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) said Monday.

The brutal assault was shocking even to a nation inured to sexual crimes against women, and thousands of protesters took to the streets in the weeks that followed to demand tougher action.

Four days later, a British woman in Agra jumped from a second-floor hotel room when she feared the manager was trying to break in, while in another case a Swiss man was held at gunpoint while his wife was gang-raped in Madhya Pradesh.

 “From December 2012 onwards the inflows of women foreign tourists to the country have gone down by 35 percent and the overall tourism being affected by 25 percent,” said Assocham’s secretary general, DS Rawat, in a press release.

Tour operators have reported that canceled bookings -- “especially from women” -- were mostly from the U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia, Rawat said.

He said the string of high-profile sex crimes “raised concerns about the safety of female travelers to the country,” adding that the cases attracted “international attention.”

He called on his country to strengthen security at major tourist spots, warning that India’s unsavory reputation could inflict “long-term” damage on its $17 billion annual tourism revenues.

About 6.6 million international tourists visited India last year, India’s tourism ministry estimates.

In the Dec. 16 attack, police say the gang lured the 23-year-old victim onto a bus in New Delhi, where they repeatedly raped and assaulted her with a metal bar before throwing her bleeding onto a highway. She died of internal injuries two weeks later.

Related:

5 accused men plead not guilty in India gang rape

India gang-rape victim's father: Hang the 'monsters' responsible

Authorities: Alleged ringleader in India gang rape hangs himself

Manan Vatsyayana / AFP - Getty Images

Media representatives surround an ambulance as it leaves the main entrance of Tihar Jail in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI -- The alleged ringleader in the gang-rape and death of a young Indian woman in December hanged himself in jail on Monday, officials said, a dramatic twist in a case that has provoked outrage across India.

Ram Singh's lawyer said his client had been composed and calm when he spoke to him on Friday and that there were other inmates in his cell in New Delhi's Tihar jail, raising questions about whether it was a suicide and how it could have gone unnoticed by staff in India's highest security prison.

The lawyer and a prison official said Singh had not been on suicide watch.

Police have described Singh as the ringleader of five men and a juvenile on trial for the December 16 attack on the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist on a bus in the Indian capital. Singh was driving the bus.

All six accused have pleaded not guilty to rape and murder.

The assault triggered nationwide protests, a toughening of rape laws and an intense debate about rampant crime against women in India.

Tihar prison authorities ordered a magisterial inquiry after Singh was found hanging in his cell at around 5 a.m. (7 p.m. ET Sunday), prison spokesman Sunil Gupta said.

Singh's lawyer, V.K. Anand, told Reuters that his client did not appear to be distressed when he spoke to him on Friday.

"I believe he was satisfied with the way the trial was proceeding because we had a very strong case against the prosecution's claims," he said.

"This is not suicide, this is something else. I know he had a few complaints of jail authorities torturing him, but nothing that would make him take his own life. We can't rule out foul play. Nothing is adding up," he said.

Manish Swarup / AP

The mother of Ram Singh cries as she speaks to journalists inside the family's home in New Delhi on Monday.

Anand has previously always denied that his client was being maltreated in prison. He did not elaborate on the "torture".

Singh had been kept in a cell with other inmates, he said.

A former director of the jail, Kiran Bedi, said Singh should have been kept isolated from the main prison population.

The trial of the five adult men started last month while the juvenile's trial began last week. Ram Singh's brother Mukesh Singh, gym assistant Vinay Sharma, bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh and fruit vendor Pawan Kumar are the other men on trial.

Under Indian law, the juvenile cannot be named.

The attack generated headlines around the world, but the case has since largely disappeared from public view, in large part because authorities have barred reporting on the trial, which was due to resume in a fast-track court on Monday.

Police allege the six attacked the woman and a male companion on the bus as the couple returned home after watching a movie on December 16. The woman was repeatedly raped and tortured with a metal bar. The couple were also severely beaten before being thrown onto a road.

The woman died of internal injuries in a Singapore hospital two weeks later.

The police report used to charge the accused draws a picture of Ram Singh as the ringleader. On the night of December 16, the accused gathered at his house for dinner, where he came up with the plan of taking the bus out to look for a victim to rape, the report said.

The police say they found him sitting in the blood-stained school bus, wearing a bloodied T-shirt, the morning after the crime. A DNA test revealed that the blood belonged to the rape victim, the report said.

Related:

5 accused men plead not guilty in India gang rape

India gang-rape victim's father: Hang the 'monsters' responsible

India gang-rape victim dies in hospital; case focuses attention on sexual violence

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:22 PM EDT

NEW DELHI - The trial of five men charged with gang-raping and murdering a young woman on a bus in New Delhi opened on Tuesday with closed-door testimony from her male friend who appeared at court in a wheelchair, still bearing the scars of injuries from the attack.

Anindito Mukherjee / EPA

A Delhi police van arrives at the Delhi Saket court in New Delhi, India, Tuesday.

The 28-year-old software engineer, who may not be identified, is the prosecution's star witness in a case that has triggered nationwide protests, an intense debate about rampant crime against women in India and tougher anti-rape laws.

The five accused are Vinay Sharma, a gym assistant, Ram Singh, the bus driver, his brother Mukesh Singh, bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh and fruit vendor Pawan Kumar.

They have pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and murder. A sixth accused is being tried separately as a juvenile.

Police allege the six attacked the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist and her friend on the bus as the couple returned home from watching a movie on Dec. 16.

The woman was repeatedly raped and tortured with a metal bar. The couple were also severely beaten before being thrown onto a road.

The woman died of internal injuries in a Singapore hospital two weeks later.

Victim's father: Hang them
As the trial got under way, the victim's father made a surprise appearance at a news conference organized by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to call for his daughter's attackers to be hanged.

At one stage, the friend, defense lawyers and some policemen moved from the courtroom to a courtyard where the bus on which police say the attack took place was parked.

Journalists saw some of them board the vehicle, which was white with tinted windows and orange curtains. Above the windshield was painted "Praise the Goddess" in Hindi.

The victim's friend was not seen boarding the bus. The friend's father said later it was the second time his son had seen the bus since the attack.

In his statement to police after the assault, the friend said their attackers had asked "where are you going with a girl so late at night?" before launching a furious assault in which he was beaten with a metal rod and his clothes ripped off.

While he was being beaten, the woman was repeatedly raped, he said, according to a police charge sheet seen by Reuters.

The prosecution says articles stolen from the couple, including their cellphones, rings and debit cards were found in raids conducted on the homes of the accused. DNA evidence and bloodstained clothes also form part of their case.

Defense lawyers say they will highlight what they say are discrepancies in the account given by the victim's friend.

The five men are being tried in a special fast-track court opposite the shopping mall where the victim and her friend went to watch the film "Life of Pi" before boarding the bus.

About 30 policemen were deployed outside the courtroom on Tuesday as the five accused arrived wearing scarves or handkerchiefs to mask their faces. 

Related:

Indian cabinet moves to toughen laws on rape, crimes against women

Video: Father of rape victim speaks about her dreams, final days

Attorney in gang rape case blames victim

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Richa Singh, 24, who works for an online travel portal, says, "women are seen as objects in this city, it doesn't matter what I wear, I still get stared at by men on the streets."

Since the death of a medical student who was gang raped on a bus in New Delhi the issue of women's security has been under the spotlight as never before in India. Mansi Thapliyal, a female Indian photographer working for Reuters, interviewed a variety of women in New Delhi to find out how they feel about their safety since the rape.

Reactions were strong and wide ranging, from women who now feel they need to arm themselves or take self-defense classes, to others who are scared to go out alone at night.

"My city is known as the so-called rape capital of the country," Thapliyal wrote in a blog post on Reuters.com. "They say it’s unsafe, it’s dangerous, and it’s full of wolves looking to hunt you down." Read her entire blog post on Reuters.com.

Thapliyal decided to focus her camera on the city’s women to find what they think about their security, and how they are protecting themselves. Below is a collection of her photos shot earlier this month, and made available to NBC News today. 

Aanchal Sukhija, 19, studying fashion media communication, said that whenever she hires an auto rickshaw she has to send a short message to her father giving details of the auto in order to feel secure.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Aanchal Sukhija waits for an auto rickshaw outside a metro station in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Nalini Bharatwaj, 37, chairperson of a management institute, says "Half of the time I am alone with my children and sometimes I have to travel late at night from work. It's enough to shut up anyone trying to molest me or even pass a comment if I flaunt my gun." 

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Nalini Bharatwaj, holds a gun while posing in her office in New Delhi.

Deepshikha Bharadwaj, 24, who works for an advertising agency, has posted the notice that reads, 'Sorry I am not staying late now,' on her desk and said she wanted to send a message to her colleagues that she is not going to work late in the office anymore.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Deepshikha Bharadwaj stands inside an elevator in her office on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Sweety, 22,a student, travels four hours every day from her village to the city to learn karate and taekwondo. She said, "boys in my village are scared to tease me after I beat up one boy who was passing lewd comments on me."

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Sweety, takes a self defense class in New Delhi.

Simrat, 24, who works for a non-profit arts organization, said, “I made the decision to use public transport as my primary way of moving through the city because I really believe that it is my right to be able to use public space, just as much as it is of any man."

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Simrat travels in the women's compartment of a metro in New Delhi.

Chandani, 22, who works as a cab driver for a social enterprise which claims to provide safe and secure cab services for women driven by women, said demand for their cabs has increased.

 "I am doing a very unconventional job for women,” she said. “Given that I do night shifts, I carry pepper spray bottle and I'm trained in self-defense. Initially I faced a lot of problems but driving cabs at night has helped me to overcome my fears.”

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Chandani sits inside her car on a street in New Delhi.