Last week, deputy consul general in New York Devyani Khobragade, 39, was charged with filing false documents in order to gain a work visa for a housekeeper. Officials in India have become outraged at reports that the diplomat was arrested, handcuffed, strip-searched, and then held with other convicts until she could be released on $250,000 bail.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry contacted a senior Indian official in order to calm the situation, and expressed his regret that it got out of hand. “As a father of two daughters about the same age as Devyani Khobragade, the secretary empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from India about the events that unfolded after Ms. Khobragade’s arrest,” the State Department said in its statement. “He expressed his regret as well as his concern that we not allow this unfortunate public issue to hurt our close and vital relationship with India.”
However, the prosecutor who charged the female diplomat made a very different statement Wednesday evening, saying “there can be no plausible claim that this case was somehow unexpected or an injustice.” Prosector Preet Bharara added that the diplomat “clearly tried to evade U.S. law designed to protect from exploitation the domestic employees of diplomats and consular officers.”
