India's reputation as a safe and easygoing tourist destination has been dented by a string of alleged rapes and sexual assaults on foreigners in the past week, including at least four of them British women.

The Indian Government has called tourism officials from its 28 states to a meeting in Delhi next week to review security measures for the five million foreigners expected to visit this year.

The meeting was announced as police confirmed today that medical tests had shown that a 32-year-old British woman was raped on Friday night in Goa, one of India's most popular tourist sites.

The woman told Goan police that her assailant offered her a lift home on his motorcycle after she had attended a concert in the city of Mapusa in north Goa.

“I do not know where exactly he took me. I struggled and screamed but...no one heard me,” she told an Indian television station.

Two more British women have told Goan police that they were sexually assaulted by the owner of a resort in the former Portuguese enclave - although a case has yet to be registered against him.

Also last week, a Russian woman reported being attacked by a beach café owner in south Goa and a Finnish woman alleged that she was threatened with rape by two local men at another seafront eatery.

The reported assaults highlight the dangers of travelling alone as a woman in India, where Westerners are widely regarded as promiscuous, and sexual harrassment in public places is routine. The alleged attacks are particularly damaging to Goa, which has earned a reputation as one of India's most tolerant and cosmopolitan tourist sites since becoming popular with Western hippies in the 1960s.

The lastest government statistics show that there were 19,348 rape cases reported in India in 2006, compared with 15,847 in 2005 — an increase of 22 per cent.

Goan authorities have vowed to crack Friday's rape case within two days, to deploy extra police to improve security for tourists, and to adopt “zero tolerance” towards sexual assault.

“Certainly I would say that it's bad, but to say that it is setting a trend - no,” said Kishen Kumar, Goa's Inspector General of Police. “By and large, Goa is a very peaceful place. By and large tourists feel very safe.”

Local officials say that the problem is caused partly by the rapid increase in the number of foreigners visiting Goa, whose beaches attracted 2.2 million tourists last year. The problem is made worse by foreigners' disregard for local mores and by Goa's reputation for hedonistic beach parties, fuelled by drugs and alcohol.

Other popular tourist area in India have registered similar cases in the past year. A British freelance journalist reported that she was raped by the owner of a guesthouse in Udaipur, home of the Lake Palace, in Rajasthan, two weeks ago.

An American woman alleged that she was molested at a temple in Pushkar, also in Rajasthan, last week. Two teenage girls from Canada reported being sexually assaulted by a security guard at a hotel in the southwestern state of Kerala last week.

In September, two Japanese women were allegedly gang-raped in Agra, site of the Taj Mahal, while in June, a South Korean tourist said she had been raped near Manali, a hill station in Himachal Pradesh.

The Government is so concerned that the assaults could undermine its Incredible India! advertising campaign that it has summoned state tourism ministers to a meeting in Delhi on January 24.

S. Banerjee, the Tourism Secretary, has reminded all the participants of a commitment last year to deploy tourist police at all important sites. Only ten states have complied so far.

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