Calling the arrest and handcuffing of Deputy Consul General Devyani Khobragade in a public place in New York last week as “an insult”, Union External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has said the US reaction to the Indian government’s protest in this regard is awaited. “We consider it as an insult. The US has been apprised about our stand on this and we are awaiting its response.
“We will do the needful after it is received,” Khurshid told reporters in Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh late on Saturday when asked about the arrest of the Indian diplomat. In a major diplomatic embarrassment, 39-year-old Devyani Khobragade, who is a 1999-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, was on Thursday taken into custody by the police on a street in New York as she was dropping her daughter at school and handcuffed in public on charges of visa fraud.
Khobragade was later released on a $250,000 bond after pleading not guilty in the court. Following the incident, India summoned US envoy to India Nancy Powell to lodge a strong protest and to convey “shock” over the “absolutely unacceptable” incident.