Police in the Indian capital Delhi have arrested two people in connection with the gang rape of a Danish woman.

The 51-year-old tourist was attacked by a group of men in the Paharganj area on Tuesday evening. Police say she was robbed and raped at knifepoint.

The woman had lost her way near her city centre hotel and had approached the men for directions.

There has been growing alarm at India's sexual violence since the 2012 fatal gang rape of a student on a Delhi bus.

But violence and discrimination against women remain deeply entrenched in India's staunchly patriarchal society.

A Delhi police official said two young men were arrested late on Wednesday in connection with the incident and some of the woman's belongings, including an iPad, a mobile phone and some cash, were recovered from them.

"We have identified the culprits, all of them are [local] vagabonds, they would be nabbed soon," a police official was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.

The Danish woman told police that she approached the group of men after losing her way as she returned to her hotel near New Delhi Railway Station.

The woman flew out of India on Wednesday morning, police say.

The Danish woman is believed to have been travelling alone and had been in Delhi since Monday after visiting the Taj Mahal.

Police say she gave a detailed statement in the presence of the Danish ambassador before leaving the country.

Paharganj, a busy backpacker district frequented by foreign tourists, is located in the heart of the Indian capital, not far from Connaught Place.

Last March a Swiss tourist was gang raped and her partner attacked by a group of men in Madhya Pradesh state. Six men were jailed for life for the attack in July.

Since the December 2012 Delhi gang rape, the nation has been shocked by a string of brutal rapes of Indian women.

They include a photojournalist raped in broad daylight in central Mumbai, a 21-year-old woman raped by two apparently unrelated groups of men on Christmas Eve in Pondicherry and a 16-year-old girl who died after being gang-raped twice and then set on fire in the eastern city of Calcutta.

Although cases involving foreigners continue to get attract more attention in the media and from the police, Indian women who are raped are still unlikely to receive justice, our correspondent says.

Source: BBC