DHAKA: India’s foreign minister has demanded that the United States drop a case against an Indian diplomat who was strip-searched after being arrested in New York City.

Dr Deyvani Khobragade was accused of paying her Indian housekeeper far less than she had claimed on a visa application.

An Indian official said Dr Khobragade, a deputy consul general in New York, had accused the housekeeper of blackmailing her last summer.

India’s external affairs minister Salman Khurshid told reporters on Thursday that Dr Khobragade should never have been arrested, and that the housekeeper should have been arrested instead, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1831 HRS, DEC 19, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor