Lucknow, Sep 23 (IANS): Three youth have been arrested for molesting an American student who had to jump off a moving auto rickshaw to save herself, police said.

The student had boarded a tempo in Tuliaganj late Saturday. After all the passengers de-boarded the vehicle at different places, the tempo driver, along with his two friends molested the girl.

The US national, who lodged a complaint with the police Sunday said, the trio molested her for over 20 minutes and as she tried to raise an alarm they raised the volume of the music in the vehicle.

She also noted the number of the tempo and conveyed it to the police.

The police was reluctant to lodge a case and instead told the victim that they will "help her". She, however, said she would not settle for anything less that a formal complaint to be registered.

Following this, the police lodged a complaint and arrested tempo driver Veeru and his friends Rajan and Ayush.

The girl is a US citizen and studies at an institute on Gokhaley Marg and lives in a rented flat at Indiranagar. The victim also told the police that she had to jump off the moving vehicle when it slowed down near Qaiserbagh in order to save herself from the trio.

Shiva Shukla, women police station in-charge, said the trio would be paraded before the victim Monday for identification.