India is taking retaliatory measures against the United States on Wednesday after an Indian diplomat complained of being stripped and forced to undergo “cavity searches” while in U.S. detention. The measures include a revision of work conditions of Indians employed at U.S. consulates and a freeze on the import of duty-free alcohol and food, Reuters reports.
On Tuesday, authorities removed concrete security barriers used to prevent vehicles from driving at high-speed near the U.S. embassy in New Delhi, and they would also offer some protection against a suicide-bomb attack.
On December 12, Devyani Khobragade, a deputy consul general at the Indian Consulate in New York, was arrested on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her housekeeper, the article says. She was released on a $250,000 bail, and she sent an email to colleagues complaining of “repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches, swabbing” and being detained in a holding cell with petty criminals despite asserting her immunity.