Washington: In the wake of the arrest of India's Deputy Consul General in New York, the U.S. said the Indian Deputy Consul General has immunity from jurisdiction only for her actions in an official capacity and hoped that the incident will not affect bilateral ties with India, which has strongly reacted to the treatment meted to the diplomat.
Following India issuing a strong demarche to the U.S. Ambassador in New Delhi and forcefully taking up the matter, the State Department said it was handling the issue.
"We are handling this incident through law enforcement channels. We have a long-standing partnership with India, and we expect that that partnership will continue," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told PTI.
India's Deputy Counsel General Devyani Khobragade, a 1999-batch IFS(Indian Foreign Services) officer, was taken into custody in New York while dropping her daughter to school and handcuffed in public on visa fraud charges before being released on a $250,000 bond after pleading not guilty.
Khobragade's attorneys have emphasised that she has diplomatic immunity, whereas the federal law enforcement authorities have argued that her alleged visa fraud is not covered under the Vienna Convention. "Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Indian Deputy Consul General enjoys immunity from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts only with respect to acts performed in the exercise of consular functions," the spokesperson said.
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