New Delhi: The US State Department has refused to drop charges against Indian diplomat #Devyani Khobragade, adding that the case would proceed according to all necessary legal procedures. Khobragade, a Deputy Consul General at the Indian consulate in New York was arrested for allegedly filing false immigration documents allowing her to bring her domestic help Sangeeta Richard over from India.
India continues to demand that all charges of visa fraud be dropped against Khobragade saying that US Secretay of State John Kerry's expression of regret was just not enough. Khobragade faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.
Meanwhile, the US Marshals Service has denied having conducted a cavity search on Khobragade. The US Marshals in a statement said, "In reference to the question about the cavity search the answer is no.
Khobragade was subject to the same search procedures as other arrestees held within the general prisoner population in the Southern District of New York which in this case was a strip-search."
On Thursday, the US distanced itself from the statement of US Attorney Preet Bharara, who is prosecuting the case. Preet Bharara had outrightly denied claims that Devyani Khobragade was mistreated, arrested in public and handcuffed.
Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman spoke to Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh on Thursday evening and distanced the US authorities from Bharara's statement.
Bharara, in fact, said that Devyani was accorded courtesies that are generally not given to most Americans.
Bharara went to the extent of saying that she was even allowed to make personal phone calls before she was arrested and the arresting officers even offered to get her refreshments.
But Bharara maintained that the strip-search was standard operating procedure and that it was done by a female Deputy Marshal.
India has stood firm and is demanding that US withdraw the case against its diplomat and issue an apology over the whole row.
External Affairs Minister #Salman Khurshid earlier reiterated that the case against the Indian diplomat in the US was a conspiracy.
Khurshid called the case unwarranted and said, "The Devyani case is unwanted. The first thing I want to do is to protect my diplomat. Whatever happened is unsatisfactory and extremely distressing."
This comes even after the US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed 'regret' over the treatment meted out to Devyani, but fell short of apologising for it. "Hope the incident would not damage the close relationship the US has with India," he had said in a call to India's National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon on Wednesday.
But even as the US government tries to mollify India on Devyani's humilitating ordeal, many questions remain about the state department's role:
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