By EDU PUNAY

Three Indian nationals accused of kidnapping and repeatedly raping a 26-year-old woman in Cavite last year were arrested last Tuesday, the Bureau of Immigration said Wednesday.

Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said the suspects – Jaswinder "Michael" Kumar, Avtar "Omar" Singh and Swaran "Jerry" Singh – were arrested by the bureau’s operatives in their house at Windward Hills Subdivision in Dasmariñas, Cavite.

The Indians are now held at the bureau’s detention center in Bicutan, Taguig City as they await trial for charges of kidnapping with rape before the Imus regional trial court.

Libanan said the victim, whose name was withheld, positively identified all three aliens as those who abducted and repeatedly raped her last year – an incident that resulted in her pregnancy.

The victim recalled in her complaint affidavit that she was walking home with her three-year-old son in Barangay Sta. Lucia when the three Indians snatched her.

She narrated that the suspects dragged her and her son into a car, covered her face with a handkerchief that made her unconscious and brought her to a big warehouse where she was detained and repeatedly raped for 21 days.

The victim, who is married to another foreigner, said she was tied and blindfolded during the entire period. She added that two accomplices of the suspects guarded her.

She said it was only on April 26 last year when she and her son were freed but not after her abductors threatened to kill her if she would report the incident to the police.

Libanan said the arrest of the three Indians should serve as a warning to foreign nationals who plan to commit crimes in the country, especially against women and children.

"More than just manning our country’s borders, we cannot more so allow that the dignity of our women be trampled by felonious foreigners who do not deserve any longer to stay in our country," he added.

Lawyer Floro Balato Jr., the bureau’s spokesman, said the three Indian suspects would first undergo prosecution in court before they could be subjected to summary deportation.

"It is only after they are convicted and have served their sentence for their alleged crime that we will deport them, after which they will be blacklisted and banned from re-entering the Philippines," Balato said.

Balato said the suspects would be turned over to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology as soon as the court issues a warrant for their arrest.