Muscat: Five Omanis have been arrested on charges of abducting and raping an Asian woman in Sohar, according to the Royal Oman Police’s (ROP) Criminal Investigation wing.
The case is the second one in Sohar this month involving a sexual assault on a woman. In an earlier case, an Omani had attempted to rape an Asian woman, eventually fleeing with her mobile phone and purse after she put up strong resistance. He was later arrested by the police from the Liwa area in northern Batinah.
In the latest case, which was reported last week, a European expatriate complained to the police that two Omanis had forced his girlfriend into a car and drove away after assaulting him in the parking area of a hotel in the industrial port town of Sohar.
“Later we found out that the two youngsters had stolen a car registration plate to use on their vehicle for abduction,” a spokesman for the ROP’s public relations department said, adding that the two suspects had consumed alcohol at the hotel before they assaulted the European expatriate and kidnapped his girlfriend of an Asian nationality.
The duo took the woman to Al Mawalih area in Sohar and were joined by two others. They then gang raped the woman. The fifth acused joined the group later in the night and he also raped the woman. The suspects then left off the woman near Sohar Referral Hospital.
The Criminal Investigation team in Sohar subsequently arrested all the accused one by one and referred them to the public prosecution.
In another attempted attack on a girl reported in Muscat, a 12-year-old’s presence of mind and courage saved her after she gave the slip to her abductors who had snatched her from outside the Indian School Muscat, taking her away in a mini bus generally used to transport school children to and from schools.
