US may have flouted body search procedures in DevyaniKhobragade case

NEW DELHI: The United States Marshal Service (USMS) may have flouted its own policy by subjecting Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade to strip and cavity searches, an examination of its rules show, lending weight to India’s accusations that its actions were disproportionate and probably even illegal.

USMS directives, reviewed by ET, stipulate that such searches can be done only if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person arrested is carrying contraband or weapons, is a repeat offender or is considered a security, escape or suicide risk.

The directives, in place since 2010, clearly lay down four kinds of searches – pat-down search, in-custody search, strip search and digital cavity search – with the last two used only in specific circumstances.





Khobragade, in an e-mail to her colleagues that found its way to the media on Wednesday, said she had been subjected to stripping, cavity searches, DNA swabbing and handcuffing while in custody. This was despite the fact that she or her alleged offence does not fit in with the profile of people or crimes that could be subjected to such intrusive examination.

USMS spokesperson Nikki Credic-Barrett confirmed that Khobragade was subjected to a “strip search”, but claimed this was as per standard procedures. But experts in India said subjecting Khobragade to such searches, besides being disproportionate, was clearly violated the USMS’ own rules.

Former cabinet secretary and India’s ambassador to the United States from 1996 to 2001, Naresh Chandra, said US had clearly violated its own law and accused the US Marshall Service and State Department of lying.

“The latter knows that what the US Marshals did was excessive and is just covering up a bad case by defending this matter in typical US bureaucratic style. If her lawyer brings this to the notice of US courts, they will take a serious view. We should not let US off the hook on this one,” Chandra told ET.

An e-mail sent by ET to the US Marshals Service, requesting clarifications on the said deviations from their policy, remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

Former Home Secretary GK Pillai said the US was probably trying to send a message through its “excessive and arbitrary” treatment of Khobragade. “I suspect a method to their madness. US wanted to send a message through the way they humiliated the Indian woman diplomat,” he said, echoing a line taken by Uttam Khobragade, the diplomat’s father.

“Devyani has been made a target, a scapegoat. It is the outcome of tussle going on between India’s Ministry of External Affairs and the US State department for the last two years,” he had said on Tuesday after a meeting with Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid.