Devyani humiliated: India retaliates, import facilities for US diplomats revoked, security barriers removed

New Delhi: India today hit back at the United States with a series of counter-measures against US diplomats based in India, consequent to the public humiliation of Indian deputy consul general Devyani Khobragade in New York.The counter-measures are: --All US diplomats must submit details of salaries paid to their servants, maids, gardeners and other domestic servants to the Indian authorities. --All American Schools must submit details of salaries paid to teachers and their bank account details, to be forwarded to Income Tax department for tax compliance. --All security barriers allowed to be erected on Nyaya Marg in the diplomatic enclave Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, for security purposes for the US embassy, will now be dismantled. --All import clearances given to US diplomats for importing fine food, wine and other costly items, as exemptions under customs duty rules, stand revoked. --All US diplomats working in consulates across India have been asked to submit their IDs to Indian authorities. These counter-measures follow the refusal of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon to meet a top-level bipartisan US Congressional delegation presently in New Delhi. Rahul Gandhi and Shinde Tuesday refused to meet the US Congressional delegation, comprising Republican and Democrat members, to highlight India's strong disapproval of the arrest, handcuffing and strip search of diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York last week. On Monday, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon cancelled their meetings separately with the visiting US delegation. The NSA is known to have described the treatment meted out to Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, as "barbaric" and "despicable", a source told IANS. Khobragade was strip searched, confined to a cell with drug addicts and also subjected to DNA swabbing, sources confirmed to IANS.Devyani Khobragade, a diplomat enjoying immunity under the Vienna Convention, was publicly handcuffed by New York police, packed off inside a police car, strip-searched in custody, and kept inside a lockup with sex workers, drug addicts and common criminals. All this happened even as the 1999 batch Indian Foreign Service diplomat kept protesting that she enjoyed immunity under the Vienna Convention. The deputy consul general was going to drop her children to school, when she went through the horrendous ordeal. A furious Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, a former IFS diplomat in her younger days, on Monday called off a meeting with a US bi-partisan Congressional delegation. National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon also called off the meeting, but curiously, the External Affairs Ministry rolled out the red carpet with the Minister Salman Khurshid personally welcoming the US delegation. The Lok Sabha Speaker was angry not only because Khobragade was a dalit, but because the New York policemen did this to a woman diplomat, a mother of two. This is not an error of judgment by one police officer, but it appears to be on orders from above, say sources in the know.India has already condemned this treatment saying it was "unacceptable".