Rape incidents caused concern among women tourists: Aus ambassador

New Delhi: The media coverage of rape incidents in India has caused “some anxiety” among Australian women who plan to travel to India, Patrick Suckling, Australian High Commissioner to India, said today. He, however, said that he was unclear whether the number of Australians visiting India has come down following the recent rape incidents. “I think the recent media on rapes in particular has caused some anxiety or some concern or second thinking by particularly women who might be thinking of travelling alone or in travelling groups. So, I don’t have any clear evidence to show there has been a drop of the Australians visiting India,” Suckling told reporters here. He was asked whether the issue of safety is a concern for Australian government in the wake of 400 Australian students visiting India to study the Asian conditions. [caption id=“attachment_952315” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Incidents of rape may have affected tourists who were planning to travel to India. PTI[/caption] Suckling said that Australians generally see India as a “very interesting and receptive if at times challenging place to come”. “Last year 183,000 Australians came to India to visit. 152,000 Indians visit Australia. That projects about 300,000 visit by 2020,” he said. The incident of the brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old girl in New Delhi on December 16, last year had made news worldwide. The Delhi girl was gangraped in a moving bus and later she died at a hospital in Singapore where she was taken for treatment. There were incidents of rape of foreign nationals in the country that have sparked security concerns for foreign tourists. PTI