Netherlands asked to withdraw action against Indian CEO
Tuesday, 01 April 2003, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: India has asked the Netherlands to withdraw an Interpol "red corner notice" issued against the CEO of an Indian IT company for alleged visa fraud that led to his arrest last week. "We have taken up the matter again with the Netherlands government. Our ambassador has issued a note verbale to them," external affairs ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters Monday. He said the Indian high commission in London had been given consular access to Senthil Kumar, the London-based CEO of i-flex Solutions, who is in custody after his arrest at the behest of the Dutch. The Dutch authorities also arrested 13 IT professionals of the company, based in the Netherlands, and later released them. Kumar was arrested on a request of the Netherlands government, which said he was ultimately responsible for the alleged visa fraud of his employees. "We hope that the red corner notice issued by the Interpol would be lifted," Sarna said, adding that all the 13 employees had returned to India from the Netherlands after their release. India had strongly protested to the Netherlands both in New Delhi and at The Hague over the arrests and termed it "neo-protectionism" to put barriers in the free flow of professionals. I-flex Solutions is a mid-size software development and solutions companies with a $100 million-dollar turnover and has 398 clients in 89 countries. New Delhi said the manner in which Indian professionals were treated was humiliating and "mystifying" since they possessed valid visas. New Delhi, however, did not want to see a pattern between these arrests and similar harassment of Indian IT professionals in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Source: IANS
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