This Article is From May 27, 2011

Real culprit wasn't arrested, handcuffed: Krittika

New York: Krittika Biswas, the daughter of an Indian diplomat, hit out at the New York City administration for behaving in a highly prejudiced manner in arresting her in an alleged case of obscene emails sent to two teachers in her school.

Ms Biswas said the real culprit was not even arrested or handcuffed.

Krittika, who was wrongly arrested and subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing, is suing New York City for $1.5 million.

She said here is security camera footage proof that she was at a mall when the incident happened.

"I wasn't even at the computer when the mail was sent," said Ms Biswas.

She is the daughter of Debashish Biswas, vice consul (administration) at the Indian Consulate General in New York.

Krittika said her claims of diplomatic immunity were ignored when she was handcuffed and locked up for more than 24 hours on February 8.

The US government has, however, said that family members of the diplomat don't enjoy diplomatic immunity.

"My understanding is that as a family member of consular officer, rather, she does not enjoy immunity from jurisdiction or inviolability," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Wednesday.

Toner acknowledged that diplomats' family members carry a diplomatic passport, "but again, our understanding is that these provisions, however, don't apply to their family members and that this is different for consular officers versus those in the embassy".

The spokesman insisted that the incident would not affect US ties with New Delhi saying, "The US-Indian relationship, I would counter, has never been stronger."

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