Lucknow: A Japanese tourist was robbed in Varanasi by motorbike-borne thieves on Friday, the fourth time in three weeks that a foreigner has been targeted in the Uttar Pradesh city.

The tourist, identified as Takumi Adi, was walking to the International Tourist Bureau office at the Cantonment railway station in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to book a train ticket to Delhi when he was waylaid.

"I had initially gone to the general reservation counter, where the clerk told me that I would be able to book my ticket from the ITB (in an adjoining building). But when I was walking towards the enquiry counter where the ITB is located, one of the bike-borne thieves asked me something. While I was trying to understand what he was asking, the other thief snatched my bag and they escaped on the bike," a Government Railways Police officer quoted Adi as saying in his complaint.

J.P. Singh, the GRP inspector of Varanasi, said: "Besides an iPhone, the tourist was carrying a drone and a high-definition camera in his bag. We have registered a case against unidentified thieves and are trying to identify them from CCTV footage."

Adi reached Varanasi on Wednesday and is staying in a guesthouse near Pandey Ghat.

On December 10, some French tourists and their three Indian companions were attacked in Mirzapur, 35km from Varanasi town. Three persons were arrested.

Three days later, an unregistered guide fled with the belongings of Akihito Tanaka, a Japanese tourist, in Mughalsarai, 25km from Varanasi. The police have yet to make any arrest.

An Argentine woman was molested and robbed of her cash near the Ganga in Varanasi on December 16, when she was praying on the riverbank. Six persons were arrested.