Khobragade was handcuffed and reportedly strip-searched after her bust, treatment considered particularly demeaning for a woman in her country.India’s officials fumed that she was even held in a cell with drug addicts.
From a previous thread:
Furious India downgrades privileges of US diplomats
Outraged by the details of the alleged harsh treatment meted out to its deputy consul-general in New York, India Tuesday retaliated strongly with a series of measures that jolted the perception of friendly ties between New Delhi and Washington.
US consulate staff and their families were asked to return their diplomatic ID cards; details of Indians employed, along with their bank accounts and PAN numbers, sought; names and salaries of teachers employed at US embassy schools sought; import duty waivers, including permits to import liquor, withdrawn; and security barricades outside the US Embassy in Delhi removed.
Devyani Khobragade, the deputy consul-general, was arrested last week for alleged visa fraud while she had gone to drop her daughters to school.
Besides being handcuffed in public, Khobragade, 39, was not only stripped but also allegedly forced to undergo repeated body cavity searches - a treatment usually reserved for drug suspects - before she was freed on a $250,000 bail bond.
Subsequently, Khobragade narrated her ordeal in an email to her colleagues.
“I must admit that I broke down many times as the indignities of repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches, swabbing, hold up with common criminals and drug addicts were all being imposed upon me despite my incessant assertions of immunity,” the 1999-batch IFS officer wrote.
She thanked her colleagues for their support and said that during her confinement, she “got the strength to regain composure and remain dignified thinking that I must represent all of my colleagues and my country with confidence and pride”.
Disturbed by the details, New Delhi upped the ante and stripped US diplomats and their families in India of several privileges.
Taking the position that American staff at consulates will be treated at par with which Indian diplomats are treated in consulates in the US, all personnel posted in consulates and their families have been asked to turn in their diplomatic ID cards immediately.
On the instructions of the government, the special barricading outside the US Embassy in New Delhi that had closed a part of Nyaya Marg to the public, was also removed. While the barricading and closing of the stretch of road has ended, a police picket will remain there for security purposes.
Making a distinction between consulate and embassy staff - the US has four consulates in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad - instructions have been sent out that details of all Indians employed at the consulates have to be shared.
Besides, US staff at the consulates have been asked to provide details of the employment of their spouses or dependents along with tax details, bank account numbers and salary details.
In related moves, political leaders, ministers and Indian government officials have also cancelled their meetings with a visiting US Congressional delegation. Those who called off meetings with the delegation include Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.
Describing the incident as “unacceptable”, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said that a process has been “put in motion” to deal with the issue effectively.
“We have put in motion what we believe would be an effective way of addressing the issue...we have expressed our deep distress and sense of disquiet, that has been very very strongly felt, in the strongest words possible,” he said.
BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad condemned the incident and said that the treatment of the diplomat “does not accord to the level of friendship that the Indian government claims to have with the US”.
“The way she was arrested after being handcuffed, kept with drug addicts and strip-searched in the police station, that is condemnable, reprehensible and regrettable and in clear violation of conventions,” he said.
National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, who also called off his meeting with the Congressional delegation, termed the treatment meted out to the diplomat as “despicable” and “barbaric”.
A high-ranking official of the Bharatiya Janata Party – currently the largest opposition group in Indian and favored to win upcoming elections — urged India to arrest the domestic partners of any gay US officials there.
India’s Supreme Court, in a ruling last week, essentially deemed homosexuality there illegal.
They better not pout, they better not cry. The ever long faced john f’n kerry-heinz could be stoppin’ by. And we all know what a bad ass he is. Why, he’s like a junior jhen-jiss kahn.
This country, under Obama, is getting more whacked by the day!
Strip searched by democrats in a democrat HIVE, democratically.. NYC...
The cavity searches were just for fun...
Are cavity searches TAXED in NYC?...
I would be mad too, were someone from my country treated this way on foreign (or any) soil. I heard nothing about this. What’s going on? All this for a what..a VISA? I don’t believe it. Not even TSA is this stupid. This was done to send a message of intimidation, to and for what of have no idea. This is preposterous and criminal. Stripped? Probbed? Is this now the USSSR? Meanwhile, Obumbo is overacting out of Africa, trying to get rid of gay rumors by lavishing the Great Dane with boyfriend-type attention, making sure his wife and the world sees him. Another day, another administrative embarrassment!
Start ticketing Indian delegation vehicles on the streets of NYC.
Wars have started over lesser offenses...
5.56mm
This will come to light quickest with diplomatic foreigners, but it is simply hostage taking and extortion, ...piracy.
The future holds retaliation for US citizens.
(Crickets)
The fact that the particular police officers who perpetrated these actions against an Indian diplomat have not been disciplined means that the Obama administration condones the actions.
Has the NYPD been given the okay to conduct Knockout Games against foreign diplomatic personnel? Unless the president apologizes very publicly to India, what else is anyone to believe?
This is much deeper than we are seeing here.
Why was she placed in the Tank with drug addicts? Why was she strip searched. Obama was sending a message.
I suppose it isn’t bad enough that we have Pakistan as a potential enemy in that part of the world Obama wants to piss off the Indians too. Well it seems to have worked.
Yeah, our diplomacy under the new chimp was going to be so much better than under the previous “chimp”...
Way to go American LEOs. Is there anything you can’t totally screw up?
The diplomats will float a few more tons of papyrus messages back and forth across the oceans and calm the situation down.
This is what happens when you have an Islamic terrorist in the white hut.
John Kerry’s State department? Lol, don’t think this wasn’t okay’ed at that high of a level. Nobody who’s anybody arrests a diplomat or even consulate diplomat without the okay from the highest levels of the State Department.
Instead somebody decided to arrest her, the cuffs and strip search are SOP for someone who goes into the system. A $250,000 bond? Confiscate her passport? Threaten her with 35 years in jail? Has anyone given this case any thought?
This is really a strange one. Imagine a diplomat from the UK or Canada being treated this way. Or a Saudi? What is going on?
After all that was just a few Seals,assorted consulate staff and an American ambassador that were murdered/raped/burned along with sovereign US territory that was burned and sacked. /S
With diplomatic status its a virtual get out of jail free card. When I was serving in D.C. in the military I was aware of multiple episodes of conduct by either diplomats or their dependents that would have landed an American in jail with serious time. This included arson, DUI that resulted in serious injury. This whole affair by the PD stinks to high heaven as a major screw up. It just matters who was giving the orders to do this.