LUCAS DE LA CAL PEKIN
BEIJING
Updated Sunday, March 10, 2024-2:23 p.m.
Six months traveling through India on a motorcycle gives you plenty of adventures.
Fernanda and Vicente entered through Pakistan and went down to the prosperous south of the most populous country in the world, they even jumped to the island of Sri Lanka, and then went up again
through the poor northeast
with the intention of leaving through the border with Nepal.
She, a 28-year-old Brazilian with Spanish citizenship, drives a Honda CB500X.
He, a 63-year-old Valencian living in Granada, drives a Honda Africa Twin CRF 1000.
They are a couple of bikers with more than 170,000 kilometers traveled on two wheels through
Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia during the last six years
.
They document all their trips on social networks.
They publish very successful videos on their YouTube channel.
Their joint Instagram profile (@vueltaalmundoenmoto) has more than 330,000 followers.
Fernanda's account alone is followed by more than
a million
people.
It was precisely that account with the greatest impact that the couple used to publicly denounce the terrible event they experienced in what was going to be their last stop in India.
"They attacked us in the store, they beat us, they put a knife to my throat saying they were going to kill us and
seven men raped her
," Vicente recounted in a video in which both appeared with bruises all over. the face.
The news of the gang rape of a Spanish tourist went around the world.
Crónica
compiles a
seven-day diary
, from the moment of the attack to the departure from India, through our interviews with the couple over the last week, their publications on social networks and police statements.
FRIDAY, MARCH 1
Fernanda and Vicente enter a wooded path and camp on a plot of land in Kumrahat, a village in the Dumka district, northeastern India.
It's around 7:00 p.m.
His initial idea was to continue further north, to the state of Bihar, near the border with Nepal.
However,
it is getting dark
and they decide that it is better to stop at that moment and continue the trip early the next morning.
As usual, they spread the tent right next to the motorcycles.
They have set up camp 400 meters from the road and some villagers, surprised by their arrival, have been hanging around the area for a while.
When the couple is inside the tent to sleep,
they hear voices very close to the tent
.
Vicente looks out and sees two men talking on the phone.
A while later, two other people arrive on a motorcycle and stop next to the store.
They begin to murmur in their local language.
They babble a few words in English
: "Hello, friends," they repeat several times.
Vicente looks out again, turns on his flashlight and sees that one of the men has
a dagger tucked inside his shirt sleeve.
The couple quickly gathers their things.
They put on their motorcycle suits and Fernanda tears off one of the pegs that secure the tent.
As soon as they leave, they realize that more men have arrived and try to corner them.
The situation becomes increasingly violent.
Fernanda threatens the guy carrying the dagger with the pickaxe.
The man seems like he is going to lower the knife and Fernanda does the same, but that is when
three others present grab the woman
from behind, while the rest begin to hit Vicente.
The Spaniard is able to defend himself well at first, resisting the blows thanks to the motorcycle's protectors, until one of the attackers hits him on the head with a stone and he falls to the ground.
Then, they take the helmet from Fernanda's motorcycle and begin to hit Vicente with it, who
remains semi-conscious.
Three other men take Fernanda to some bushes, about 80 meters from where Vicente has been tied up and, with a knife to his neck, they threaten to kill him.
«In the bushes, several of them grabbed me and stripped me naked.
Afterwards, they raped me in turns
.
There were always four with me.
When I screamed, they hit me in the face.
I only heard them repeat the same words in English:
only sex, only sex
," Fernanda later recounted.
«Suddenly, I stopped hearing it.
I couldn't see it either.
There was a moment when they placed a kind of tarp over my head and told me that they were going to cut my neck and that they didn't want to get blood on it.
"I thought they had already killed her
," said Vicente.
Three of the eight rapists arrested, hooded and tied with ropes.
It is around 11:00 p.m. when a patrol car finds Fernanda and Vicente walking along the road near the place where they had camped.
The
influencer
uses Google translator to explain to the agents that she has been raped by several men.
The police take the couple to a
clinic in Kumrahat,
where a doctor treats them at 2:05 a.m.
They spend the night there.
SATURDAY, MARCH 2
As soon as they wake up, another patrol car picks up the motorists and takes them to the nearest hospital, 80 kilometers away, in the city of Dumka.
While the doctors examine Fernanda, the agents take a statement from Vicente, who estimates that there are seven men who have attacked and raped Fernanda
.
The police begin raiding the village where the couple camped.
Three suspects arrested.
In her statement, Fernanda also says that
the attackers have stolen
a Swiss army knife, a wristwatch, a platinum ring with diamonds, a silver ring, black headphones, a black bag, a credit card, around 11,000 rupees. , 300 US dollars, a steel spoon and a fork.
On Fernanda's Instagram account, the couple posts a video recounting the attack.
Quickly, some Indian media echo.
The Efe Agency office in New Delhi picks up the news, which reaches Spain for the first time at noon.
A lot of media noise
begins to build up
around the case and the police ask Fernanda to delete the video on Instagram while they continue the investigation and try to find the rest of the suspects.
That night, Dumka authorities take Fernanda and Vicente to a safe apartment to rest.
The group rape of the Spanish motorcyclist has already gone around the world.
SUNDAY,.
MARCH 3RD
Vicente answers the call from this newspaper early in the morning.
Fernanda is resting in the security apartment room, very sore from the blows.
Vicente recounts what Friday's attack was like.
The Dumka flat where
they spent the night is under police guard.
There are always agents at the door and the couple does not stop receiving visits from doctors and more police officers.
Fernanda has been able to sleep for a few hours.
The woman thanks the local authorities for the attention received.
The Spanish consular delegation in India has already sent a worker to Dumka to accompany the couple.
A few hours later, Fernanda and Vicente are
escorted to a court
to give a statement before the judge.
They do it in writing and also in front of the magistrate, first together and then each one separately.
A little later, the Indian authorities released the first photographs of the suspects who were detained at that time.
The agents
drag them tied with ropes, like animals,
and they wear black bags on their heads.
MONDAY, MARCH 4
Vicente and Fernanda, early in the morning, from the security apartment guarded by the police, tell us their story together and how they started the project of traveling around the world on a motorcycle.
He is a
Valencian businessman,
with several companies related to water and wind energy, who spent 11 years living in Brazil.
In the city of Fortaleza in 2015 he met a young Fernanda, originally from Goiânia, a municipality near the capital, Brasilia.
The couple spent time bouncing between Fortaleza and Granada, where Vicente had built a
prosperous business career
and had his Spanish residence.
Six years ago is when they both decided to start touring Europe.
Then came the Middle East.
The idea of documenting everything on YouTube was Fernanda's.
Little by little, the followers grew and calls from
brands and sponsors began to arrive.
«We finished the European tour touring Türkiye, Georgia and Armenia.
Then, we got into the Middle East.
We always go with the motorcycle, visiting the most remote and wild corners, sleeping with the tent where we can.
Everything has happened to us, both good and bad,
but never anything as serious as what happened in India," explains Vicente.
TUESDAY, MARCH 5
Dumka police report that they have arrested the rest of the suspects in the attack.
In total, there are eight, one more than the number the couple had previously given.
They are all villagers between 20 and 30 years old.
The authorities once again publish new photographs of those arrested, also
with bags over their heads.
Fernanda and Vicente say that they had already identified two of them because they appear in the videos they recorded as soon as they arrived in the village of Dumka.
Fernanda and Vicente, the Spanish couple who was assaulted.
The local authorities, as happens in some cases of rape in India—especially if they are reported in the media—give Vicente
a compensatory check for about 12,000 euros.
"The victim is emotionally destroyed, but she is in stable physical condition," says the Dumka judge handling the case.
The couple is very angry about some terrible reviews they are reading on social media.
The vast majority of the comments they receive are of support and solidarity, but there are also heartless people who say that the entire rape case is an invention to gain notoriety on networks or that the couple, during their appearances on television shows, do not seem very sad or bruised.
One even reads extremely twisted atrocities
such as that Fernanda was asking for it.
The biker tries to vent on her Instagram account, where she posts a photograph of one of the rapists who appeared in the videos they recorded prior to the attack.
«
Do I have to hide now?
Should I let them hide and not report?
IM not going to do it.
I will teach everyone if necessary so that justice is done.
Nobody knows shit about what I'm going through, so I'll know how to act.
And no, I am not ashamed because it was not my fault.
“I have had a second chance to be alive
and I will take it and live my life happily,” Fernanda writes.
«I am outraged above all by what I have had to read and hear from Spaniards, almost telling me that I have brought it on myself, as if I am too well and whole for what has happened to me.
What do I have to be?
Even more destroyed?
Crying?
With a cut?
"It's incredible that this still happens today."
«They have caught all the criminals, and there were eight in total.
Everything has gone very quickly, the police have been
tremendously efficient.
I just have to thank everyone who has helped and supported us.
"I ask for justice for all the women who also go through this, that it is not just me, we all deserve the same."
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6
Early in the morning, Fernanda and Vicente take the motorcycles and leave Dumka escorted by the police.
A lot of journalists, local authorities and curious people see them off.
The couple heads towards the state of Bihar, where they will spend the night to cross the border with Nepal the next day.
They only think about returning to Spain
by taking a plane from Kathmandu.
THURSDAY, MARCH 7
Vicente responds by WhatsApp that they have already crossed to Nepal.
They are going to leave the motorcycles in Kathmandu and take a plane to Madrid.
Their plan is to rest for a while in Spain, for Fernanda to be examined by a doctor there, and then
travel to Brazil to be with the woman's family.
The biker couple say that despite the terrifying attack they suffered in India, they will be back on the road soon.
From Kathmandu, crossing Tibet, they will march to Laos.
From there to Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Later, the Philippines and Indonesia.
They will make the jump to Australia, sending the motorcycles by boat.
The last stop will be New Zealand.
@Lucasdelacal