New Delhi: India’s suspicion about the US having actively connived in the travel of househelp Sangeeta Richard’s family from New Delhi to New York appears confirmed with evidence surfacing on Monday which indicates that tickets for them were purchased by the US embassy in New Delhi.
As per the tickets issued in the trio’s name by Air India, the ticket endorsement reads: “JNTAXEXEMPTEDUSEMBASSY” Sources said the US embassy is granted service tax exemption on the purchase of air tickets. These tickets were issued by Kuoni Business Travel, which is apparently the official travel agency of the US embassy.
The tickets for Sangeeta’s husband Phillip and children Jennifer and Jatin were granted the 4.50 per cent tax exemption that is the norm for diplomatic missions in the country. The evidence of US embassy’s further collusion in the family’s travel to the US emerged on a day when diplomat Devyani Khobragade was granted exemption from personal appearances in a New York court as it takes up charges of alleged visa fraud against her.
India had cried foul last week, accusing the US of being in cahoots with the Richard family and helping in its “evacuation” from India to the US. There was no response to an email query sent to US embassy deputy spokesperson Lee McManis on the embassy’s link to the tickets purchase.
External affairs minister Salman Khurshid had last week also accused the US of “fraud” in granting visas to Sangeeta’s family to allow them to fly to the US. The family took Air India Flight 102 from New Delhi to New York on December 10. Just two days later, the US authorities moved in to arrest India’s deputy consul-general Devyani Khobragade in New York for alleged visa fraud. Thereafter, she was subjected to humiliating treatment, including handcuffing and a strip search.
On Monday, the deadline for the US embassy and its consulates to provide the government with the bank account details and salaries paid to Indian employees as well as visa details of staff working in US embassy schools in the country, ended, but without all the information being furnished.
