Photojournalist Raped in Mumbai

Indranil Mukherjee/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Policemen standing at the entrance gate to the Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai, Maharashtra, where a gang rape victim was admitted on Thursday night.

MUMBAIâ€" A female photojournalist on assignment in Mumbai was gang raped while her male colleague was tied up and beaten, the police said. Five men are being sought as suspects in the assault Thursday evening.

‘‘She was taken to Jaslok Hospital with multiple injuries,’’ said Rane, a head constable at the N.M. Joshi Marg police station in the Lower Parel neighborhood of Mumbai, where the case was registered. Mr. Rane refused to reveal his full name.

The attack occurred around sunset, as the woman and her colleague were visiting Shakti Mills, an abandoned textile mill complex near the Mahalaxmi train station in Lower Parel. The woman was taking photographs of the area for a magazine story about Mumbai’s chawls, tenements for workers employed in the mills.

Lower Parel was the site of many textile mills until the 1980s, as manufacturing moved out of Mumbai. In more recent years, the area has undergone redevelopment and become a hub for media and advertising agencies, upscale restaurants and shopping malls. Several luxury apartment blocks are coming up in the area, but some abandoned mills remain.

The police have released sketches of the five suspects, based on woman’s report. Officials at Jaslok Hospital confirmed that the woman had been admitted Thursday evening, but did not provide details. ‘‘We are doing the needful,’’ said Dr. Tarang Gianchandani, a senior hospital administrator told The Press Trust of India. ‘‘She is under strict observation. At the moment we can’t say anything.’’

‘‘The case will be investigated very seriously,’’ said R.R. Patil, the home minister of Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located.

Satyapal Singh, Police Commissioner, Mumbai said at a press conference in Mumbai Friday afternoon that one of the accused has been arrested and the police has identified the other four accused. The accused are believed to be between 20 and 25 years old and residents of Lower Parel, where the incident took place.

The attack was reminiscent of the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student last December in a bus in New Delhi. The woman and her male companion were attacked with iron rods, and the woman later died of her injuries. The incident caused public outrage across India. Protesters took to the streets demanding a safer environment for women and heavier penalties for sexual assault. In March, a new sexual offence law was passed imposing stricter punishments for violence against women and making activities such as stalking and voyeurism criminal offenses.

Although Mumbai, India’s financial capital, is widely considered one of India’s safest cities, recent events have brought that into question. According to statistics released by the Praja Foundation, a non-profit organization in Mumbai, there were 207 cases of rape registered in the city in 2011-12, a 15 percent rise over the previous year.