Police in Japan’s Shiga prefecture have arrested an Indian man for allegedly raping a teenage girl last month, local news outlet Kyoto Shimbun reported.

Shiga’s Otsu police arrested the man, identified as a 24-year-old temporary worker, on Thursday on suspicion of assaulting and raping a teenage high school girl.

The man allegedly assaulted the “girl living in the prefecture, including by choking her, and then having sexual intercourse with her at a hotel in Otsu city”.

The incident took place in the early hours of June 21, according to the report, which was also carried by Tokyo Reporter.

It quoted the Otsu police as saying that the suspect and the girl did not know each other. The man had gone with her to the front of a hotel under the pretence of asking for directions, then forced her into a room, the police said.

The suspect denied the charges and was quoted as saying, “I did not force her.”

In May, Japanese police said they arrested a former taxi driver on suspicion of drugging and raping a female passenger, with media reports saying police found about 3,000 videos and images of him sexually assaulting around 50 women in his taxi or his home.

In India, a court jailed a 31-year-old man for life in February following the rape and murder of a young Irish woman in the tourist resort state of Goa, nearly eight years after the crime.

The month prior, a Kolkata court handed a life sentence to a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a doctor, a crime that sparked nationwide protests and hospital strikes last year.

In March 2024, police in Dumka district of India’s Jharkhand state arrested eight men in connection with the gang rape of a Spanish tourist.

In 2016, five Indians who raped a Danish tourist after she asked for directions in New Delhi were sentenced to life in prison.