NEW DELHI: A gang of nine men arrested earlier this month have told the Chittoor police in Andhra Pradesh that they raped 59 women in the last two years, NDTV news channel reported on Monday.

It said that according to Y. Harinath Reddy, a senior policeman investigating the rapes, 16 of these cases were on record. In the other alleged cases, the victims appeared not to have filed complaints, NDTV quoted him as saying.

India recently widened the definition of rape and sexual harassment, which has ensnared three or four well-known men, including former judges and a senior journalist in related allegations.

However, all the measures do not seem to have deterred truly horrific crimes against women being committed in or reported from virtually every direction on the compass right across the country.

A 16-year-old girl was gang-raped in Kolkata. When she reported the matter to the police she was allegedly raped again by the same people who later set her on fire. She named her tormentors in the dying declaration.

Mr Reddy said the men he was investigating would corner couples in secluded areas like forests and would rob them and rape the women. In at least one case, he alleged, they had filmed the rape and threatened the couple that if they reported the crime, they would release the video in public.

The couples they attacked were either secret lovers, both married and unmarried, or engineering and other college students, he said. There were also some sex workers among those allegedly raped.