Tension is currently high in India after the "terrible" treatment of one of its top
diplomats, who was arrested and strip-searched in the US.
According Aljazeera, Indian Foreign Minister Salman
Khurshid said on Thursday that he hoped India's "valuable
relationship" with the US would soon return to normal, but reiterated
calls for the visa fraud case against diplomat Devyani Khobragade to be
withdrawn.
"We have asked for the case to
be dropped and withdrawn... we are not convinced that there are legitimate
grounds for pursuing it," Khurshid told foreign journalists.
"I cannot believe if a US
senator was arrested he would be put through this behaviour....I would rather
not prejudge. Let us allow the American government to respond."
US Secretary of State John Kerry
tried to end the dispute in a phone call to India's national security adviser
on Wednesday, expressing regret and stressing that the issue should not be
allowed to hurt a "vital relationship".
India's Parliamentary Affairs
Minister Kamal Nath said "a mere regret won't make us happy. They must
offer a clear apology and accept that they made a mistake, that is what we will
be satisfied with".
Khobragade, India's deputy
consul-general in the US, was arrested, handcuffed and then strip-searched last
Thursday, following a complaint that she had been paying nanny Sangeetha
Richards less than $3 per hour, far less than the minimum wage stipulated
in the US.
The 39-year-old diplomat also faces
allegations of filing wrong information in the visa approval form for Richards.
Richards deserted her employer and
went missing in June this year.
Richards contacted Khobragade and
demanded compensation failing which she threatened to go to US law enforcement
agencies.
Despite the fact that the Indian
government informed its counterparts in Washington about Richards' actions, the
US authorities seem to have disregarded the information and acted in
conjunction with the nanny.
Preet Bharara, the US federal
prosecutor handling Khobragade's case, has insisted she was arrested
discreetly, and was not handcuffed.
The US Marshals Service on Thursday
also denied the diplomat's claims, saying that she was strip-searched
according to standard procedures, and put in a detention cell with other female
detainees.
Outrage in India
The allegations that Khobragade
was strip-searched have caused outrage in India and prompted a series of
reprisals, including the removal of protective barricades outside the American
embassy.
In an interview with Indian
television, Foreign Minister Khurshid acknowledged there was "a sense
of hurt" over the treatment of the diplomat at a time when US President
Barack Obama is looking to bolster ties with New Delhi.
"Things happen between friends,
even things that are terrible," he told the CNN-IBN network.
"My duty is not to allow anyone
to damage relations, the relationship," he also told reporters.
Khobragade's father has pressed
for his daughter's release, saying he would go on hunger strike if action was
not taken
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