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Thursday, December 19, 2013

design behind the humiliation

it is probably a message to embolden the moles that they and their
family will be protected even against court orders and govt action.
and a warning to anyone who dares to cross their path. a very
powerful message. and a very weak response in the given context.

read excerpts below and the complete article in the link at the bottom

That there is a larger conspiracy behind the episode is evident from the fact that on December 10, two days before the diplomat’s arrest (December 12), Sangeeta Richards’s husband, Philip, and two children quietly flew to America by an Air India flight. Somebody in Washington had helped them procure visas, a highly unusual development, since the Indian Government had revoked Sangeeta Richards’s official passport in July and asked for her to be deported to India. Usually such a dramatic evacuation is done only to protect US spies.......

Philip was granted a T-visa, which allows victims of human trafficking and immediate family members to remain and work temporarily in the United States if they agree to assist law enforcement in testifying against the perpetrators......

 The Indian Government revoked Richards’s official passport, which made her status illegal in the US, and asked the State Department to locate and send her back to India. The request was repeated in September; the same month, the Delhi High Court issued an interim injunction restraining Richards from instituting any action or proceeding against Khobragade outside India regarding her employment and to settle all disputes in India as both women worked for the Government of India. The Indian mission informed the US authorities that as the maid was seeking a US visa, she was violating laws in both countries. On November 21, the Saket district court issued a non-bailable warrant for Sangeeta Richards, and India asked the US to help serve the warrant and repatriate the maid.....

 The initial Indian reaction to the arrest – snub to a visiting Congress delegation; revocation of diplomatic IDs to US consul staff and their families; withdrawal of airport passes and import clearances; removal of security barricades around the American Embassy on Shanti Path; and demand for information about wages paid to Indians employed by the US mission and by individual diplomats in India – is inadequate given the enormity of the provocation.....

 Worse, the US marshal service seems to have flouted its own rules by subjecting the diplomat to intrusive strip and cavity searches, when these can be done only if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person arrested is carrying contraband or weapons, is a repeat offender or is considered a security, escape or suicide risk. None of these conditions apply to Devyani Khobragade.....

 The Government of India, backed as it is by the entire nation, must respond in a more muscular fashion, commensurate to the offence in which the US Government has knowingly helped Sangeeta Richards commit an immigration fraud and evade Indian justice. In these circumstances, Secretary of State John Kerry’s telephonic apology to National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon is a meaningless diplomatic nicety......

http://m.niticentral.com/2013/12/19/more-to-devyani-khobragade-controversy-than-meets-the-eye-170273.html

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