Pennsylvania:
In January 2011, an officer deputed to work with the Indian mission to the UN in New York was transferred back home after he misbehaved with a co-passenger on an Air India flight to New York. Just weeks before that, the third-ranking diplomat in the Indian High Commission in London was transferred back to India following allegations of assaulting his wife. Last week, an Indian youth delegation harassed women, disrespected their hosts and behaved boorishly while on a trip to China. And now yet again in the United States, an Indian officer is accused of sexual assault on a woman employee at the hotel he was staying in.
Surendra Mahapatra, 1985 batch Indian Forest Service officer has been detained in Pennsylvania and will be produced in court on the August 2. While the Indian Consulate in New York is trying to help with providing legal aid, Mahapatra, who is a joint-secretary rank officer, was travelling on an official passport. He is unlikely to get diplomatic immunity.
Co-workers of the accused tell NDTV that the victim was a young girl, a college student, just in her early twenties. They say she was "lured" into the Indian official's room on the pretext of his internet connection not working. He then tried to kiss her and unbutton her shirt. According to sources, the police have been reviewing the hotel security tapes to corroborate the sequence of events. Authorities are examining the hotel security tapes to study the victim's expression when she left the officers room, whether she was shocked or stunned, whether she was in a dishevelled state, re-buttoning her shirt, all of which will go towards strengthening her case against the Indian forest officer. Ironically, employees of the hotel went out of their way to provide an Indian breakfast to the over 30 Indian officers staying at the hotel on the day they were checking out. The officers were attending for a mid-career training programme at Syracuse University. It was a meal of appams and sambar, a gesture to their guests visiting from India. However, the news of the assault on one of the woman employees of the hotel spreading has left a bitter taste in every body's mouth.