Indian diplomat arrested, handcuffed in US for visa fraud

[W.G.Ewald]

I even think Al Jazeera recently started a broadcasting station in USA. This is strange.

Fact-Based, In-Depth News | Al Jazeera America

Fact-Based, In-Depth News | Al Jazeera America

 

[happy]

A small refresher about this whole case....

********************************************************

The diplomat's arrest: The Tuticorin connection - Rediff.com India News

Is Devyani Khobragade's arrest connected to India detaining an anti-piracy ship owned by a US security firm, asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

The Devyani Khobragade episode in New York has two clear aspects to analyse. The first is the how and why of the incident itself and the other more important, its wider repercussions and what it means to India-US relations.

When the initial reports of India's acting counsul general in New York being handcuffed and strip searched on December 12 appeared, many like me viewed it as an 'oops' moment.

Most thought that the action was taken by an overzealous law enforcer of Indian origin. Many observers of the American scene are aware that when it comes to dealing with India, some Americans of Indian origin do show extra zeal to show their loyalty to the adopted country.

This is not to either 'defend' Dr Khobragade's contract with the maid and her acquisition of properties in India (getting a prime location flat in a building meant for war veterans). But the fact remains that she was treated in an extra harsh manner that violated her human rights and dignity.

The American media and officials hiding behind the cloak of 'standard procedure' need to realise that this behaviour is unacceptable in a civilised world.

The outrage in India was also due to memories of past incidents when India's former President and serving ambassadors, ministers and eminent artists were harassed at their airports.

But most, including me, took it as a diplomatic 'faux pas' at the worst.

As an Indian taxpayer, one was also concerned that it would be one more instance where we (coerced by American NGOs and ambulance-chasing lawyers) will bear the cost of fulfilling another maid's 'American Dream'.

However, more skeletons soon tumbled out of the American closet.

The family of the maid at the centre of this controversy was spirited away from India on December 10, two days before the Indian diplomat was arrested.

It also turns out that the maid's extended family worked at the US embassy in New Delhi. The family was given an emigration visa in 48 hours flat, impossible without the knowledge/approval of the ambassador and upper echelons of the US State Department.

The maid and her family have been given asylum in the US and the Indian diplomat is accused of human trafficking.

A wage dispute between two Indian citizens in the US on diplomatic passports (even the maid has a white diplomatic passport) has thus been turned into a row between two governments with most of the Western media giving it a suitable spin, equating India with countries like Saudi Arabia (that in American eyes can do no wrong) or North Korea!

Even the facts about the wages being paid have been given a fraudulent twist.

The maid in question was being given free lodging and boarding. In addition, Rs 30,000 was regularly credited to her account in India.

Since the money was paid in India, it ought to be accounted in PPP (purchase power parity) terms.

The 'Big Mac Index' of currency equivalence shows that $1 in July 2013 was equal to Rs 19.70 in India.

Thus, the 'real' money paid in cash to the maid is roughly $1,520 per month.

Add to that the facilities provided to her in New York, possibly she was being paid more than the minimum wage.

If the maid was dissatisfied with this, she had every right to leave the job.

It is believed that some such negotiations did take place in June/July.

There are a thousand discreet ways in which this issue could have been resolved without making it a public spectacle and without injustice to the so-called 'hapless' maid.

The inventive Western media seems to have forgotten that the individual maid in question had willingly signed a contract and gone to the US.

She got different ideas later, but that does not make this either a case of slavery or human trafficking.

Why was this incident, in which the exact 'guilt' of either party is yet to be proved, turned into an opportunity to create 'leverage' against the Indian government?

It seems more likely that the New York incident is connected to India detaining an anti-piracy ship owned by a US security firm.

The Sierra Leone-flagged ship, the Seaman Guard Ohio, belongs to the Virginia-based AdvanFort, a maritime security firm that specialises in anti-piracy operations.

The ship is held in the southern port of Tuticorin along with 10 crew members and 25 armed security guards.

The crew and security guards included British, Estonian, Indian and Ukrainian nationals.

The ship's crew has been accused of obtaining subsidised fuel without authority. Bail for the crew has been denied.

The curious aspect of this case is that the ship is licensed to patrol the eastern Indian Ocean and Gulf. The sailors or 'contractors' are in the Indian judicial system and not likely to be let off easily.

To those who doubt this connection, a reminder that the US, including its President, went to extreme lengths to save Raymond Davis who was charged with murder in Pakistan.

It seems very likely that a compromise will soon be found to circumvent the judicial process in the US and in India.

The Indian diplomat will be off the hook and the ship with its crew will be released. However, these episodes raise a question mark on the future of India-US relations.

Coming close on the heels of the American non-cooperation in the David Headley case, this will leave a bitter taste.

What is extraordinary is the utter American insensitivity to public opinion in India -- a rare country in which survey after survey showed the US as a popular country in the public perception.

Indians seem to have underestimated the strength of American self-perception of its 'Exceptionalism'.

The Americans believe that they are the champions of human rights and religious rights and American justice is second to none. They also have legal systems in place that puts American law over international treaties and other nations's laws.

Most of the world, especially after the scandal of the US National Security Agency snooping over communications in Europe, Asia and Africa with no distinction made between allies and enemies, see the US as a global sheriff, not just a global cop.

To an outsider, the US increasingly looks like a capitalist USSR, complete with its Big Brother snooping, its own Gulag at Guantanamo, its own version of Pravda in The New York Times and Izvestia in the Washington Post!

Even after the current impasse is resolved, Indians would do well to be strictly reciprocal in all dealings with the US and not keep all our eggs in a single basket.

***************************************

I honestly agree with the author on all counts.

 

[ladder]

Fact-Based, In-Depth News | Al Jazeera America

Probably to promote their TV channel

Take a look at below link

How to watch Al Jazeera English online - Watch Now - Al Jazeera English

 

[W.G.Ewald]

@happy

The curious aspect of this case is that the [Seaman Guard Ohio] is licensed to patrol the eastern Indian Ocean and Gulf. The sailors or 'contractors' are in the Indian judicial system and not likely to be let off easily.

To those who doubt this connection, a reminder that the US, including its President, went to extreme lengths to save Raymond Davis who was charged with murder in Pakistan.

The article you posted was intriguing, but I'm not sure I get the analogy of Davis and Seaman Guard Ohio. But it's a starting point, perhaps, to understand the DK affair.

 

[happy]

@happy


The article you posted was intriguing, but I'm not sure I get the analogy of Davis and Seaman Guard Ohio. But it's a starting point, perhaps, to understand the DK affair.

Sir, I thought you knew about this angle all along.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Sir, I thought you knew about this angle all along.

I did not. What needs to be filled in are the details of who in USG made a decision to use the DK case as leverage against India regarding the matter of Seaman Guard Ohio.

By the way, I did not see any comments on the article you posted which shed any light on the subject.

This seems to be the latest on ship's crew, but US interest would lie more with the ship..

Court reprieve for 35 crew members of US floating armoury

Also found this:

http://www.niticentral.com/2013/12/21/devyani-arrest-tit-for-tat-for-mv-seaman-171246.html

The protracted stand-off over Devyani Khobragade has led many in India's security establishment to consider that the real reason for the arrest and humiliation of the diplomat could be India's adamant detention of the floating armoury, MV Seaman Guard Ohio, on October 11 this year, and the continued incarceration of the 35 crew members, including Captain Dudnik Valentyn. The diplomatic confrontation in the matter could well be intended to end in an IC-814 style exchange.

MV Seaman Guard Ohio, owned by US-based Arab billionaire Samir Farajallah's firm AdvanFort, was detected moving in Indian waters under the Sierra Leone flag and detained at Tuticorin port in Tamil Nadu. Indian officers recovered 35 assault rifles and 5,724 rounds of ammunition from the vessel. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is trying to establish if these armaments were intended for the dormant LTTE extremists or Islamic terrorist groups in south India.

http://www.niticentral.com/2013/12/...de-controversy-than-meets-the-eye-170273.html

 

[ladder]

I did not. What needs to be filled in are the details of who in USG made a decision to use the DK case as leverage against India regarding the matter of Seaman Guard Ohio.

By the way, I did not see any comments on the article you posted which shed any light on the subject.

Court reprieve for 35 crew members of US floating armoury

US Consulate General officials visit arrested crew members of MV Seaman Guard Ohio

US Consulate General officials visit arrested crew members of MV Seaman Guard Ohio - Economic Times

 

[roma]

Close it all and issue notices to pay taxes, as it goes not come under the Diplomatic actions of the state.

After closing, renovate it slightly into two halves , if it is large enough

Rent half of it to the Russians to use, the other half to the French

Alternatively rent it wholly annually to the russians and the french, germans, japanese
and other important tech nations
- on an annual basis -
make some money out of it - instead of like now giving free to ingrates

 

[ladder]

As reported if there is difference of pay in same jobs done by Indians and Americans is US embassy. India should cancel permit for locally hired staff for US embassy and consul office. Also permission shouldn't be granted for hiring from third country.

Let them staff their offices with US citizen, would know then the meaning of cheap labor.

======================

 

[roma]

some of my posts may seem that i am against the usa ?

far from it - so let me clarify
usa has given our folks a lot of post-grad study opportunities
and also in business ~it seems they give when they know
they will also benefit - and im not against that - mutual help is fine
but generally in military tech - we were unable to do any joint deal worth much with them
....the exception could be GE engine for LCA ....but then again GE needed the jobs

russia otoh gives or rather gave quite generously in terms of military tech
of course we may say they too had their reasons
really everyone would have their reasons
the measuring factors should be:-
did we get what we required out of the exchange - and was it a fair deal

in our relationship with the third major military supplier - france
i think things are going well -
with japan too

my opinion is we cant depend on any one nation too much - otherwise we become their colony
that's actually what happened with us and the brits
the brits gave the semblance of protection from the north-western invaders
we became overly reliant on them - and they took over

we shouldnt become overly reliant on the usa for our post-grad requirements
we should allow kids in school - perhaps at the secondary stage 12 yrs and onwards
to study other languages, eg russian , french , japanese, german
then we can diversity our supplementary sources for postgrad education
- besides further developing our own

then our present disproportional over-reliance on one nation, in this case the usa
for postgrad education and research facilities
can be diversified

and we cant be held hostage by any one nation
as we have been by the brits in the past .

 

[ladder]

From Divyendu Sinha to Devyani Khobragade, 2013 was a rough year of injustice for the Indian community in the US

A dastardly 'knockout game' resulted in murder, and in another case, loss of dignity.

By Sujeet Rajan

Sujeet-sidebar 150x150

NEW YORK: On June 25th, 2010, Prof. Divyendu Sinha, 49, was walking after dinner with his wife and two sons, who were 16 and 12 at that time, outside their house in Old Bridge Township, New Jersey, when a group of five teenagers – one the driver of the car the group came on – attacked them viciously.

As his young sons were overpowered, restrained, beaten, trying to help their beloved father, four of the murderous gang viciously punched, kicked, brutalized Sinha. The genial and brilliant computer scientist died from his injuries at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, three days later. He never regained consciousness from the attack.

The Jersey police termed the attack as "youth wilding." But Sinha, an alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, with a Doctorate in Computer Science from the Stevens Institute of Technology, was probably the first victim of the murderous, cold blooded assault termed frivolously in popular culture as "knockout game."

On December 12th, 2013, Dr. Devyani Khobragade had gone to drop her children to school in Manhattan. She was in for the worst surprise of her life. US agents surrounded her, arrested, strip searched, cavity searched, DNA swabbed her, threw her into jail for six hours with criminals with a record. The Deputy Consul General of India at the Indian Consulate in New York, who was also at the time an envoy for the Indian government at the UN, as an Advisor, had no prior criminal record, had diplomatic immunity — unlike ordinary citizens — against arrest for any crime deemed to be not grave in nature. She lost her dignity that day, was shamed, humiliated.

The Attorney General's office of the Southern District of New York revealed Khobragade was arrested for alleged visa fraud and misrepresentation, charged with offenses that carry 10 and five years jail sentence, respectively.

Two similar charges in the past against Indian diplomats resulted in civil suits, not an arrest. No diplomat in the US has ever been charged criminally for a similar offense, jailed. Khobragade was the exception.

Khobragade seems to be the victim of a discriminatory diplomatic "knockout game" played by the US, with a sucker punched, startled India still reeling from the after effects of the roundhouse blow, unable to come to terms with the sudden, traitorous attack.

How much of a factor is race in the surprising verdict last year in Sinha's case, with the accused getting off leniently, and in Khobragade's unnecessary arrest? It's not an easy answer, but if one were to dismiss and laugh off the race equation in both, it's foolish.

To say racism doesn't exist in America is not like saying that there is no 800 pound gorilla in the room (by the way, how many of you have actually seen one at a reception or in the living room of a friend's house, or even heard somebody saying he has one in his head), but it's more like going to a zoo, and saying you did not see any animals.

Race is a factor in everyday life in all parts of America. It's a pervasive entity in the history and culture of the country, energizes and divides public discourse, dictates laws, demarcates boundaries between people of ethnic descent with the Caucasians, and between ethnicities, to the present day. Racism will end in America when global warming comes to an end, or when zoos turn greenhouses, nurse only flowers, and you would be right in saying you did not see any animals on a visit.

A week ago, the US government filed its first hate crimes charges in a "knockout game," the first such case filed in the cowardly attacks. It's against a white male, 27, who attacked a black man, 79, in Fulshear, Texas, in November. It's not hard to guess why. Most of the perpetrators of these attacks are young black males, caught on surveillance tapes, not many have been nabbed.

If a black man had been put on the dock, the African American community would have risen as one and termed the action discriminatory, racist. Blamed for retaliation for centuries of subjugation, as slaves. By trying a white man first, the Obama administration is trying to deflect criticism from the number of cases that is soon going to be brought up as hate crimes against African Americans who have attacked mostly Caucasians.

In the Sinha case, for which judgment was delivered in 2013, it's hard to ignore that when it came to the jury selection, three Indian-origin jury members selected were not favored by the defense. That despite the five teenagers tried as adults, as perpetrators of hate crimes, they were let off softly with aggravated assault and reckless manslaughter plea bargains. Two of them, both blacks, including one who threw the first punch at Sinha — as testified by his widow Alka Sinha at the trial and who had deleted texts between themselves exulting in how much they enjoyed attacking Sinha — were indicted with only counts of simple assault, rendered to six months in jail.

Six months for a brutal, cold blooded murder?

And even the six months delivered to the two was because the judge decided to punish them, disgusted by the jury's decision, who found the duo not guilty of grave crimes.

For the Indian and Indian American community in New Jersey, this is the worst affront, injustice, since the hate-fueled dotbuster attacks in the fall of 1987 through 1993, with Indians in Jersey City attacked and harassed.

In fact, in July of 1987, a group called Dotbusters published a threatening letter in the newspaper Jersey Journal, gave warning of the attacks to follow. The attacks claimed eventually the life of an Indian man, Navroze Mody, beaten to death like Sinha was, and left another man, Kaushal Saran, in a coma for a week. The letter stated:

"I'm writing about your article during July about the abuse of Indian People. Well I'm here to state the other side. I hate them, if you had to live near them you would also. We are an organization called dot busters. We have been around for 2 years. We will go to any extreme to get Indians to move out of Jersey City. If I'm walking down the street and I see a Hindu and the setting is right, I will hit him or her. We plan some of our most extreme attacks such as breaking windows, breaking car windows, and crashing family parties. We use the phone books and look up the name Patel. Have you seen how many of them there are? Do you even live in Jersey City? Do you walk down Central avenue and experience what its like to be near them: we have and we just don't want it anymore. You said that they will have to start protecting themselves because the police cannot always be there. They will never do anything. They are a week [sic] race Physically and mentally. We are going to continue our way. We will never be stopped."

The outcome for the perpetrators who were caught in the murder of Mody? Charges of aggravated assault, like for three of the men in Sinha's murder.

If in Sinha's case, the five cowards who attacked him and his family with force was also an attempt to devastate a close-knit loving family they never had the luck to enjoy in their miserable lives, in Khobragade's case, the answer is more complicated.

Why did the US punish her and India? Decide India was the one they would go after in a knockout game style attack diplomatically?

Racism in the US exists in different forms, like it does in the caste system in India. If the glass ceiling has been breached in an industry (read brown people), it's after a mere few decades, if not a century or more; if you excel in academics (read black people), it's an exception, not the rule; if you work as an agricultural worker (read white people), it's an excursion to explore life, a vacation between real jobs.

But increasingly, in the modern world, racism comes also in the form of subjugating the other on the business, diplomatic front, to herd a lesser partner in an enterprise to a cowshed, with the least amount of belching and spread of manure to clean up afterwards.

India, with its increasingly confident front in the world arena, has been taking on the US in areas like intellectual property rights, global warming, outsourcing, questioning rights for the IT industry who were wiping jobs in the US, filling with Indian personnel from Bangalore-based companies, questioning, lobbying against aspects of an oppressive immigration reform bill in Congress. A defiant India was becoming a nightmare for the US on the world stage, a bully, who was also an ally.

Super powers like to give direct messages to each other, and to the rest of the world, not necessarily through a hotline phone call, be is Russia giving asylum to Snowden or China collaborating with Pakistan on a nuclear reactor plant.

The US's message to India: embarrass her, put them in their place, by arresting a bindi-wearing Khobragade — like the dotbusters went after bindi-wearing Indian women in New Jersey — filing criminal charges against her. Teach those bloody Indians a lesson, as the Brits would have said a few decades ago, before they left the shores of the Indian Ocean.

One thing is for sure, the Sinha and Khobragade cases have exposed deep flaws in two seemingly strong, reliable fronts the US showed to the world as a mark of their democracy and first world order: their jury system and their impeccable investigation by law enforcement agencies before an arrest and filing charges.

(Sujeet Rajan is the Editor-in-Chief of The American Bazaar)

From Divyendu Sinha to Devyani Khobragade, 2013 was a rough year of injustice for the Indian community in the US - The American Bazaar

 

[Adux]

 

[Adux]

I suggest everybody watch the above video!!!! Watch it!!!

 

[aerokan]

I guess the above video explains a good number of questions @asianobserve has been raising directly from her lawyer's mouth

Sent from my C6506 using Tapatalk

 

[Adux]

----!!!!! Pakistani's are supporting India!!!!!! That too Shah Mehmood Qureshi of all people!!!

 

[W.G.Ewald]

I suggest everybody watch the above video!!!! Watch it!!!

I'm watching! I'm watching!

And this is what I think. DK needs to fire Dan Arshack and hire an advocate who will not be so emotional in the courtroom as he is in the video. He is a clown, IMHO..

DFI should contribute to a defense fund for DK, honestly.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Mr. Arshack has successfully handled securities fraud litigation, financial crimes, money laundering, arms dealing, foreign corrupt practices violations, business loss, homicide, sex crimes, conspiracy, and narcotics offenses. Mr. Arshack was U.S. counsel in a case at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague. He regularly consults with lawyers from throughout the world and represents the interests of businesses and individuals.

Mr. Arshack has appeared, in relation to his cases, as a commentator on The Today Show, Night Line with Ted Koeppel, The Queen Latifa Show, CBS, NBC and ABC News and on Court TV.

In addition to criminal cases, Mr. Arshack handles a variety of challenging civil actions generally involving protecting the interests of individuals against large institutions and those who have been abused by their therapists, teachers or priests. Recently he successfully protected the privacy interests of a young woman in a landmark case against HBO,Nieves v. Home Box Office, 815 N.Y.S.2d 495 (2006).

Arshack, Hajek & Lehrman PLLC - When the Best Defense is Your Only Choice

 

[W.G.Ewald]

 

[ladder]

----!!!!! Pakistani's are supporting India!!!!!! That too Shah Mehmood Qureshi of all people!!!

He isn't supporting India but is against highhandedness and hypocrisy of USA ( partly because he has suffered), stance of his is co-incidentally supporting Indian position.

====================

BTW who is the other panelist in studio? I just remember him by face, as he was given a good treatment in a talk show in Pakistan by Sashi Tahoor when he visited that country.

 

[Adux]

I'm watching! I'm watching!

And this is what I think. DK needs to fire Dan Arshack and hire an advocate who will not be so emotional in the courtroom as he is in the video. He is a clown, IMHO..

DFI should contribute to a defense fund for DK, honestly.

That interview was just 3-5 days after the arrest, I am agitated and pissed off, and I dont even know the woman. I am back on this board, and only on this particular thread, because I need to vent out, as well I need to make sure the right narrative was given. If US Law enforcements wants to do cavity searches on women, I can only feel sympathetic to the population, dont do it on our diplomats.

US has lost so much ground and freedom of movement in India, it is not funny at all. What a failure of diplomacy from its side. It had a free run in India till now, all of a sudden its Ambassador cant go to Nepal without a bodycheck.

Check my previous posts in this board, I have been great advocate for the US and I have put down Russia quite heavily here, rightly fully. They needed to be given only the respect they should be, not some exalted status, especially when you put in their support of the chinese. I have gone completely anti-USA, and I have no issues in India pursuing its strategy without the US in asia. We are a nuclear power with more than 150+ warheads and missiles that can annihilate any threat. China doesnt want a significant portion of its territory to be off sand glass. I am sure.
US can keep its condescending hypocritical attitude for Pakistan, not us.