Police hunt three men after student is drugged, abducted and raped in India

The 19-year-old victim was grabbed at a bus stop and attacked by up to ten people, say police

India's government responded to widespread outrage over incidents of violence against women and young girls by approving the death penalty for people convicted of raping children under the age of 12. (AP)

Police are hunting three men suspected of kidnapping, drugging and gang raping a teenage girl as she travelled to classes in northern India.

The 19 year-old student was abducted from a bus stop on Wednesday and taken to a village in Haryana state where she was attacked by up to ten people, it is claimed.

She was later dropped off in nearby Mahendragarh, a town about 145 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of New Delhi, India's capital.​

The teenager suffered injuries to her back, shoulders and genitals but is in a stable condition in a hospital in Haryana state, police officer Ashwini Kumar told Associated Press.

She has named the three suspects who kidnapped her, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

The Times of India quoted a police official as saying that one of the men is a soldier posted in Rajasthan.

Haryana Police are trying to track the men down after they switched off their phones in a bid to evade arrest.

A reward of 100,000 rupees (£1,000) is on offer for information leading to an arrest.

There have been widespread protests over the issue of sexual violence against women in India since 2012, when a young woman was fatally gang-raped on a moving New Delhi bus.

Over 100 rapes of women and girls were reported each day on average in the country in 2016, according to figures from the national crime records bureau. However, authorities believe there may be many more victims who remain silent.

In April this year, in response to the growing outrage, the government introduced the death penalty for people convicted of raping children under the age of 12.

Asmita Basu, programmes director of Amnesty international India, told The Independent in July that women’s safety in India continued to be an issue of concern and violence against women remains “widespread and pervasive.”

Additional reporting by Associated Press