Irked over the handcuffing and reported strip searching an Indian diplomat in the US, JD(U) today advocated a tit for tat policy towards US diplomats in India and slammed External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid for meeting a US delegation here after the incident.
JD (U) MP K C Tyagi also gave a notice to Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari seeking to raise the issue issue in Zero Hour. However, it could not be taken up as the House took up the Lokpal Bill for consideration and passage.
He said that he will give a notice tomorrow again for taking up the issue in the Upper House as the matter was a "very serious" one.
"A strong message should be sent to the US from India on this issue. If this is done to our diplomats, the officers from the US in the Indian Embassy should also be strip searched. We as a party condemn what External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid did.
"Why did he choose to meet the US delegation when others like Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar refused to meet the delegation in protest against the behaviour meted out to the Consul General Devyani Khobragade in New York," Tyagi told PTI.
While Gandhi, Shinde and Kumar did not meet the American delegation, Khurshid during his meeting with the US team had taken up the issue of the diplomat's treatment strongly.
39-year-old Khobragade, a 1999-batch IFS officer, was taken into custody last week on a street in New York as she was dropping her daughter to school and handcuffed in public on visa fraud charges before being released on a USD 250,000 bond after pleading not guilty in court.
