Instead of terming US legal action against Devyani “aggression” against India, MEA must ask her to face the prosecution

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

To India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), prosecution against IFS officer Devyani Khobragade in USA for violation of U.S.laws, is an “aggression” against India. No sane Indian would accept this nonsense.

Devyani has embarrassed India by being charged for offenses that call for rigorous punishment. She committed the crime, which she is yet to prove not to have committed, when in her person, because of her position, she was carrying the mana of India. She owes an explanation over this to this nation; and deserves severe punishment in India, if she fails immediately to prove that she has never committed the crime she has been charged for in U.S.A. The MEA should stop its brags and better initiate action against Devyani for having embarrassed the country in the eyes of the world.

It is charged in U.S.A. that the Indian IFS officer made a contract in India with a female worker – Sangeeta Richard – on November 11, 2012 to take her to USA under an A-3 Visa as her personal servant, wherein she had offered her “wages at the prevailing or minimum rate as required by law, whichever is greater. The expected hourly salary in U.S. would be $9.75”. But “shortly before” starting for U.S.A., Devyani had summoned Sangeeta to her residence to sign “an enlarged and electronically edited version of the first contact” wherein the original contracted wage was reduced to a maximum monthly salary that “will not exceed 30,000 rupees”, which in terms of U.S.Dollar comes to about $480 a month or about $3.31 per hour for a 40-hour week, which is less than half the minimum wages in U.S.A. fixed at $7.25 per hour. There are other charges like Visa fraud and false allegation of theft raised against the lady worker. These are serious offenses unless proved never to have been committed. Devyani must face the prosecution in U.S.A. and prove the charges as baseless, if they are. And, the Government of India should ask her to come out clean in the case instead of protecting her with jargons like “strategic partnership” between India and U.S.A., which prosecution against Devyani would affect.

Instead of describing U.S. steps against Devyani “unnecessary”, it is necessary on part of the Indian Government to start criminal prosecution against her as another Indian – a female worker – has become a victim of breech of trust in a foreign country by the errant officer.

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