Indian diplomat arrest: US gets taste of bitter India

Delhi police have been asked to remove the barricades in front of the US embassy in the national capital.

The government has also withdrawn the airport passes for US consulates and embassies, and have also sought the visa and salary details of Indian staff employed at US consulates, including Consulate officers and families such as domestic help.

Import clearance enjoyed by the US embassy, including one on liquor, has been stopped by the government.

Earlier in the morning, India had asked the US to return IDs issued to all its consular officers posted in the country, a move which may be a precursor to reviewing immunity and benefits enjoyed by them as a protest.

"Government has asked the US to return the ID cards given to their consular officers posted in India," Government sources told reporters. The arrest of Devyani has kicked up a political storm in the country with various national leaders cancelling various meetings with US officials and politicians.

In a major snub on Tuesday, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has refused to meet a US Congressional delegation in protest against the arrest and subsequent treatment meted to the Indian diplomat. The meeting, which was slated on Monday, did not take place because Gandhi wanted to register his disapproval of the American treatment of Indian diplomat, sources said.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde also cancelled his meeting with the delegation ostensibly as a mark of protest against the treatment meted out to Indian officer. However, Home Ministry officials said Shinde is busy in Parliament and, hence, he will not be in a position to meet the American delegation.

BJP's PM candidate Modi, who was also supposed to meet the US team, too cancelled the meeting.

"Refused to meet the visiting USA delegation in solidarity with our nation, protesting ill treatment meted to our lady diplomat in USA," Modi tweeted.

On Monday, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar had cancelled her meeting with the US delegation in Delhi as a mark of protest against the treatment meted out to India's Deputy Consul General.

Kumar, herself a 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.

Addressing reporters , Foreign Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid had said, "We have conveyed our sense of disquiet to the US as a protest to treatment meted out to India's Deputy Consul General in New York."

39-year-old Khobragade, a 1999-batch IFS officer, was taken into custody last week on a street in New York as she was dropping her daughter to school and handcuffed in public on visa fraud charges before being released on a USD 250,000 bond after pleading not guilty in court.

Sources said that she was held with common criminals and was strip-searched in custody by the New York Police. She was also subjected to DNA swabbing in the prison, a technique employed by forensic scientists to assist in the identification of individuals by their respective DNA profiles.

For earlier story Click Here