Indian envoy says she faced cavity search in NYC
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An Indian diplomat said US authorities subjected her to a strip search, cavity search and DNA swabbing following her arrest on visa charges in New York City, despite her “incessant assertions of immunity.”
The case has sparked widespread outrage in India and infuriated the New Delhi government, which revoked privileges for US diplomats to protest the woman’s treatment. It has cast a pall over India-US relations, which have cooled in recent years despite a 2008 nuclear deal that was hailed as a high point in the nations’ ties.
Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York, was arrested Thursday outside her daughter’s Manhattan school on charges that she lied on a visa application about how much she paid her housekeeper, an Indian national.
Prosecutors say the maid got under US$3 per hour.
In an e-mail published in India media yesterday, Khobragade said she was treated like a common criminal.
“I broke down many times as the indignities of repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches, swabbing, in a holdup with common criminals and drug addicts were all being imposed upon me despite my incessant assertions of immunity,” she wrote.
An Indian official with direct knowledge of the case confirmed that the e-mail was authentic. The official, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the case, said India’s priority now is to get the woman home.
“India’s top demand right now is: Return our diplomat,” he said, adding that Khobragade, who was released on US$250,000 bail, would have to report to police in New York every week.
Khobragade’s case has touched a nerve in India, where the fear of public humiliation resonates strongly and heavy-handed treatment by the police is normally reserved for the poor. For an educated, middle-class woman to face public arrest and a strip search is almost unimaginable, except in the most brutal crimes.
Prosecutors say Khobragade claimed on visa application forms she paid her maid US$4,500 per month, but she actually paid her less than US$3 per hour. Khobragade has pleaded not guilty and plans to challenge the arrest on grounds of diplomatic immunity.
Marie Harf, US State Department deputy spokeswoman, said Khobragade does not have full diplomatic immunity. Instead, she has consular immunity from the jurisdiction of US courts only in the performance of consular functions.
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