Nepalese maids in India accuse Saudi diplomat of rape

Indian police are investigating claims a Saudi official who enjoys diplomatic immunity repeatedly raped his two Nepalese maids in his home close to New Delhi, senior officers said Wednesday.

The women, aged 30 and 50, have filed complaints with police alleging the unnamed diplomat kept them locked in his apartment where they were abused, assistant commissioner Rajesh Kumar said.

A police team rescued the women late Monday from the apartment in the upscale satellite city of Gurgaon after a third recently hired maid alerted a local NGO, the officer said.

"We have registered a case of rape, sodomy and illegal confinement based on their complaint," Kumar told AFP.

"They have also said that even guests at the house raped them. That is why we have added gang rape in the list of charges."
The Saudi embassy denied the allegations in a statement to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. "The embassy strongly stresses that these allegations are false and have not been proven," the statement said.
One of the women told the NDTV network on Wednesday that they had been held at the Gurgaon apartment for about four months.
"They raped us, kept us locked up, did not give us anything to eat... When we tried to run away, we were beaten up," the woman said, her face covered with a scarf to hide her identity.
One of the alleged victims also told PTI that "they showed us knives and threatened to kill us".
In their complaint to police, the women said they had been brought from Jeddah, where they had been confined to a hotel, to Gurgaon to work for the official's family.
Police will push ahead with their investigation despite the Saudi enjoying diplomatic immunity, although officers would coordinate with India's foreign ministry, Gurgaon's most senior officer said.
"We have been able to establish the identity (of the accused) and we have also been able to establish that the residents of that flat enjoy diplomatic immunity," police commissioner Navdeep Singh Virk told reporters.

"We will investigate to prove the offence in accordance with the Vienna Convention."
Under the convention, diplomats and their family members enjoy legal protection in countries where they are posted and cannot be arrested or detained for any crime.
However an embassy can waive immunity if serious crimes are committed and if the foreign government comes under pressure from the host country.
An Indian foreign ministry spokesman said "we have sought a detailed report from the local police" without elaborating.

Thousands of Nepalese leave the impoverished country every year to seek work abroad, including in India and the Middle East, as domestic servants and labourers.
They send home crucial remittances to their families, but rights groups say many face abuse at the hands of their employers.
Nepal's ambassador to India, Deep Upadhyay, said he was in touch with the women and had sought help from the foreign ministry to ensure "justice is meted out" in the case.

The women are understood to be travelling back to Nepal with the help of the NGO that is helping police with the case.