Devyani Khobragade shifted to India’s UN mission
New Delhi: Devyani Khobragade, who was arrested in New York for alleged visa fraud and underpaying her domestic assistant and had to reportedly undergo humiliating frisking by US marshals last week, has been shifted to the Permanent Mission of India (PMI) in New York, on Wednesday.
Narrating the sequence of events that began in June-July this year, he said that the maid servant disappeared and a case was lodged with New York Police Department but no action was taken.
“The Deputy Consul General (later) received a phone call from a lawyer who refused to identify himself and offered to settle the matter that would result in grant of permanent citizenship to her and a huge compensation. It became clear that this was a conspiracy and some people trapped her,” he said.
Making suo motu statements in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, he strongly condemned the treatment meted out to Khobragade who was arrested, handcuffed, strip-searched and put in jail with common criminals.
Khurshid said that the treatment meted out to Khobragade had ‘not happened out of blue’ and there is a ‘history’ behind it.
Terming the action by the US government as unwarranted, he asserted that India will intervene ‘effectively and specifically’ to ensure the return and restoration of dignity of its Deputy Consul General as it a matter of the country’s prestige and honour.
His statement came in the wake of outrage expressed by members cutting across party lines who demanded strong retaliatory steps by the Indian government.
