Protests erupt in India after diplomat’s arrest in US

Outraged protesters burned photos of President Obama outside the US Embassy in New Delhi on Wednesday over the arrest and strip-search of an Indian diplomat in New York for allegedly mistreating her nanny.

The demonstrators cheered the Indian government’s sanctions against the US over the arrest of Devyani Khobragade, 39, which included the removal of concrete security barriers outside the embassy and a threatened crackdown on US diplomats.

“It was very good that the government removed the barriers yesterday. Until the USA says sorry, we should not give any security at all to the Americans,” cried Gaurav Khattar, 33, one of about three dozen protestors, some wearing masks mocking Obama and sarongs made from US flags.

“Humiliating Woman Diplomats … Is it American Culture?” read one banner held by several women.

Also Wednesday, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said Khobragade would soon return to India following her transfer to India’s permanent mission to the UN, a move that could make her eligible for full diplomatic immunity.

“We will bring back the woman diplomat arrested in New York and restore her dignity. It is my responsibility,” Khurshid said according Indian.

“We strongly condemn the treatment meted out to the diplomat in New York. India is not over-reacting to the treatment to its diplomat by US. The nation must speak in one voice,” he said.

The lower house of Parliament was temporarily adjourned after furious lawmakers demanded that it adopt a resolution against the US over the treatment of Khobragade, who was strip- and cavity-searched and swabbed for DNA while in US custody.

Arun Jaitely, leader of the opposition in Parliament’s upper house, said the government had to register its “strongest protest” to the US government for the “lack of respect for India.”

The government stripped US diplomats of privileges – such as access to duty-free booze – and even threatened to boot the domestic partners of gay US diplomats, citing a new law making homosexuality illegal in the South Asian country.

Khobragade, a deputy consul general at the Indian Consulate in New York, was busted Dec. 12 on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her housekeeper, an Indian national. She is free after posting $250,000 bail.

She is accused of lying to get her nanny into the States and then paying her a measly $3.31 an hour.

In an emotional email to colleagues, Khobragade complained of being held in a cell with petty criminals despite her repeated claims of diplomatic immunity.

“I broke down many times as the indignities of repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches, swabbing, in a holdup with common criminals and drug addicts were all being imposed upon me,” she wrote in the email.

“I got the strength to regain composure and remain dignified thinking that I must represent all of my colleagues and my country with confidence and pride.”

The US State Department told the Indian government it expects New Delhi to protect its embassy and stressed it did not want the incident with the diplomat to hurt ties.

A series of incidents in which politicians and celebrities have been detained or frisked at US airports has heightened sensitivities about what is seen as harsh treatment abroad.

Shah Rukh Khan, one of Bollywood’s best-loved actors, was detained at White Plains airport near New York last year and at Newark airport in 2009.

Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was frisked on board a plane at New York’s JFK airport in 2011.