Shimla, Aug. 27: An 18-year-old Belgian tourist who returned to a Dharamsala guesthouse midway through a trek was allegedly raped by a Tibetan youth at knifepoint.

Tashi Dorje convinced the woman, who fell ill on way to Triund, 22 km from Dharamsala, to let him accompany her to the Dharamkot guesthouse where she was putting up.

At 7 pm, he woke her up, whipped out a knife and violated her.

Dorje is believed to have feigned he too was not fee-ling good when the woman decided to turn back. The Belgian tourist had come to Dharamsala with two friends.

‘The girl came to Dharamsala a couple of days ago with two friends. The accused is a Tibetan in his early twenties and belongs to Ladakh. He is in Dharamsala in search of a job,” Kangra SP Satwinger Pal Singh said.

In a complaint filed at Forsythganj police stat- ion, the tourist said “the accused pretended he is also not feeling well” and persuaded her “to allow him to stay in the same guesthouse. Around 7 pm, he took out a knife and raped her”.

She remained in the guest house till her friends, both men in their twenties, returned. Accompanied by them, she filed the police complaint.

“We’ve arrested Tashi Dorje and the girl has been sent for a medical test,” SP Singh said.

This is the second time a foreign tourist has been raped in Dharamsala this year.

On April 15, a Tibetan nun was raped by a local youth.