Stripped of duties, controversial Indian diplomat defends conduct
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Version 0 of 1. A controversial Indian diplomat whose arrest on visa fraud charges triggered a diplomatic row with the United States last year said Sunday that she had been unfairly stripped of her duties in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, even as officials investigate further charges against her. Devyani Khobragade was recently removed from her duties in the ministry’s development partnership division and placed on “compulsory wait” after officials determined that she had violated regulations by not informing them that she had obtained U.S. passports for her two daughters. Khobragade had been working at the ministry since she was expelled from the United States in January after being indicted on visa fraud charges while she was deputy consul general for India in New York. MEA officials are now examining whether recent television interviews she gave about her case also violated rules. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” Khobragade said in a text message exchange Sunday. She said she stayed within civil service rules when speaking to the media by expressing her “personal views” and not speaking on anything “that can be taken as a criticism of government action or policy.” Khobragade, 40, was indicted in December 2013 on charges that she had committed visa fraud and was woefully underpaying her Indian maid, Sangeeta Richard, whose salary was an estimated $3.31 an hour for more than 40 hours of work. The incident sparked outrage and protests in her home country as many felt Khobragade had been unfairly singled out and manhandled during her arrest, during which she was strip-searched. The furor over her case, which is still pending in a New York court, caused a major diplomatic headache between India and the United States at a time when relations between the two countries were at a low ebb. (Things have been looking up since a new prime minister, Narendra Modi, came to power; he visited the United States this fall and invited President Obama to come to India in January.) In the wake of the incident, the Indian government toted away traffic barricades in front of the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, restricted duty-free liquor sales at the embassy commissary, investigated the visa status of teachers at the American Embassy School and forced the embassy to kick non-diplomats out of its popular American Community Support Association club. Meanwhile, Khobragade returned to India – to a heroine’s welcome – and took up residence in New Delhi with her family, beginning work at the Ministry of External Affairs. But she ran afoul of her formerly supportive employer when it learned that she had obtained U.S. passports for her two young daughters without informing the ministry. Her chatty behavior on television has triggered another investigation of her conduct, according to a MEA official. Khobragade is still garnering a salary and has said that she does not want to leave the foreign service. |