Indian diplomat in US was strip-searched, kept in jail with drug addicts

mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi/New York:  Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, who was arrested in New York last week over alleged visa fraud, was reportedly strip-searched and then put in jail with drug addicts.

"No comments," was Ms Khobragade’s response when NDTV contacted her for her version of the events.

 

Ms Khobragade, Deputy Consul General at the Indian Consulate in New York, has been accused of lying on the visa application for an Indian national who worked for her for less than four dollars an hour.

She was reportedly arrested on the street while she was dropping her daughter to school and was handcuffed in public. She was later released on a $250,000 bail.

India has already lodged a strong protest over what it described as "unacceptable treatment" meted out to its senior consular officer, summoning US Ambassador Nancy Powell in that regard.

Reiterating New Delhi’s grave concerns over the way Ms Khobragade was arrested, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon and Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar today skipped a meeting with a visiting delegation from the US Congress in the national capital.

The latest reports of Ms Khobragade being subjected to a strip search threaten to escalate into a diplomatic crisis between the two nations.


Meira Kumar cancels her meeting with US MPs in protest



In a major snub, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar cancelled her meeting with a senior US Congressional delegation on Monday as a mark of protest against the treatment meted out to India’s Deputy Consul General in New York.

 

Kumar, herself an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer who quit the service before joining politics, cancelled the meeting as she felt it was not "appropriate" to meet the parliamentarians of the US, which has badly treated one of India’s senior diplomats, according to sources.

Significantly, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who also had a scheduled meeting with the five-member US team, did not meet them, apparently for the same reason.

The delegations comprised of Congressmen George Holding (Republican - North Carolina), Pete Olson (Republican - Texas) David Schweikert (Republican - Arizona), Robert Woodall (Republican - Arizona), Madeleine Bordallo (Democrat - Guam).

Monday’s snub came after India reacted sharply to Deputy Consul General Devyani Khobragade being arrested and handcuffed in public on visa fraud charges last week by summoning US Ambassador Nancy Powell and issuing a demarche in this regard.

In Washington also the matter was taken up with the US government "forcefully" through the Indian mission.