Hope US understands our 'loud and clear' message: Government

NEW DELHI: India today hoped that the US will understand its "loud and clear" message over the Devyani Khobragade issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh deploring the treatment meted out to the Indian diplomat and Parliament expressing outrage.

"I am very confident that our message, which is loud and clear, will be understood," External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters outside Parliament House soon after the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha expressed outrage over the issue.

He termed as very "discomforting" the treatment meted out to the diplomat. He said the government is making all out efforts to protect the dignity of the official who is a "valuable" representative of the government of India.

Khurshid's remarks came close on the heels of the prime minister terming as "deplorable" the ill treatment of the diplomat in New York.

"This is deplorable," he told reporters inside Parliament House.

The Prime Minister's remarks on the issue came soon after the government asserted in Parliament that India will take strong steps to ensure the return of the 39-year-old diplomat, who was arrested, and restoration of her dignity.

In Parliament, Khurshid condemned the US action and said he will not return to the House if he fails in his responsibility to bring back Khobragade.

He said there was a "conspiracy" in which the 1999-batch IFS officer was "virtually trapped" and maintained that the diplomat is "innocent" and the US action was unwarranted. "It is not illegality that she is accused of, but the illegality she refused to oblige," he said.

Khobragade was taken into custody on a street in New York as she was dropping her daughter to school. She was released on a USD 250,000 bond after pleading not guilty in court.