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Indian diplomat arrest hits Indo-US ties?
Indian Diplomat Arrest Hits Indo-US Ties? A jinx in Indo-US ties seem to be appearing as a result of a diplomatic row over the arrest of a senior Indian diplomat Khobragade, 39, who was arrested, handcuffed and charged on Thursday with one count of visa fraud and one count of making false statements,in New York.
Washington: A jinx in Indo-US ties seem to be appearing as a result of a diplomatic row over the arrest of a senior Indian diplomat Khobragade, 39, who was arrested, handcuffed and charged on Thursday with one count of visa fraud and one count of making false statements,in New York.
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Besides she is charged guilty of exploiting her housekeeper, which may carry maximum sentences of 10 years and five years in prison. However she was later released on a $250,000 bond after pleading not guilty in a Manhattan court.
India has asked the US to resolve the matter at the earliest. According to a statement by the Indian Embassy the issue was raised on Friday with state department officials who were reminded about Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh's "strong demarche" to the US Ambassador in New Delhi, Nancy Powell, regarding the treatment meted out to Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York.
Sandhu, the embassy statement said, emphasised that Khobragade "is a diplomat, who is in the US in pursuance of her duties and hence is entitled to the courtesy due to a diplomat in the country of her work and added that "she is also a young mother of two small children"
"It was also conveyed in no uncertain terms that this kind of treatment to one of our diplomats is absolutely unacceptable," the embassy said, and "the US State Department has been called upon to resolve the matter at the earliest."
Earlier, in New Delhi, Sujatha Singh just back from a trip to the US had summoned Powell to convey that treatment meted out to Khobragade was "absolutely unacceptable".
The incident has cast a shadow on bilateral ties days after US signalled its desire to intensify its strategic partnership with India regardless of the upcoming 2014 parliamentary elections in India.
Singh had held talks with top Obama administration officials including US Secretary of State John Kerry and White House Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken besides key lawmakers of both Democratic and Republican parties.
Meanwhile, some legal experts have suggested that diplomatic immunity may not hold in Khobragade's case as non diplomatic acts by consular officers are not covered by the Vienna Conventions.
Unlike diplomats based in the capital, consular officers are not accorded absolute immunity from a host country's criminal jurisdiction, according to New York-based attorney Anand Ahuja.
They may be tried for certain local laws by a local court, and are immune from local jurisdiction only in cases directly relating to consular functions, he told local media.
Another New York attorney Ravi Batra, who has handled such cases before, suggested creation of a new legal category for diplomatic foreign domestic workers exempting them from US labour laws, including, wages and hours.
Until then "American laws must be followed to avoid both criminal and civil liability as well as diaspora and foreign-sovereign embarrassment," he said.
Diplomatic corps of foreign nations who pay their workers below US-mandated hours and wage standards "remain at high risk to be in the crosshairs of illegality and reputation-suicide," Batra said.
