WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: The United States said on Tuesday that standard diplomatic procedures were followed while arresting a senior Indian diplomat in New York last week.

State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf, however, refused to comment on media reports that the Indian diplomat was also strip searched.

“Diplomatic Security, which is under the State Department purview, followed standard procedures during her arrest,” Ms Harf said at a news briefing in Washington.

Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York, was arrested last Thursday for allegedly falsifying documents to get a work visa for her house- keeper.

The Indian media reported that she was arrested and handcuffed as she dropped off her daughter at school. She was kept in a cell with “drug addicts” before posting $250,000 bail. The reports claimed that the 39-year old diplomat was also strip-searched.

Asked if the diplomat indeed was strip searched, Ms Harf said that after the arrest the State Department’s Diplomatic Security had handed her over to US Marshals for “intake and processing.” For any additional questions on her treatment, “obviously, this would be the US Marshals and not us. I would refer you there,” she added.

The State Department official explained that under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Indian deputy consul general enjoyed immunity from the jurisdiction of US courts only with respect to acts performed in the exercise of consular functions.

“In this case, she fell under that specific kind of immunity, and would be liable to arrest pending trial pursuant a felony arrest warrant,” the US official said.

In New Delhi, India announced a slew of measures against the US embassy in retaliation for “the humiliation of the woman consular”. The Indian government first protested the treatment, but apparently failed to get a positive response from the Americans. Now all airport passes for US diplomats have been withdrawn and import clearances, including that of liquor for the US Embassy, have been stopped.

Former Indian foreign minister Yashwant Sinha was quoted as suggesting that India should expel gay partners that some American diplomats had brought to India on grounds that homosexual relationships are illegal in the country.

“We also know who all have brought in their gay partners and on what grounds they were given visas, though there is a law against it in India. We can’t talk about it because this law is controversial and outdated, but if the US wants to go to this extent, then this law and several other options are there,” an official told The Hindu.

“The Indian government asked all US consular officers to turn in their identity cards and the entire American diplomatic corps their airport passes,” the paper said in its web report.

It said senior leaders of the ruling Congress party “snubbed” a visiting US Congressional delegation for the second straight day by refusing to meet them.

“The government sought to turn the screws further by ordering Delhi police to remove concrete barricades on public land and roads around the US embassy,” the report said. “The government has sought salary details and bank accounts of all Indian staff employed at the missions and stopped all import clearances for the embassy, especially for liquor.”

The action was backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which urged New Delhi to “match each and every step of the US, to take serious action in this matter to establish the Indian sovereignty and prestige of its diplomatic community.”

The Hindu quoted, BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad as taking a dig at the government by saying US actions do “not accord to the level of friendship that the Indian government claims to have with the US” “We will deal with them exactly the same way they are dealing with us. Not anything more, not anything less. While the US doesn’t provide many courtesies to our diplomats, we go out of the way not to withhold those facilities.

“If they are downgrading what we are entitled to as diplomats, they will also get the same treatment. This way we will both be going strictly by the rules,” said an Indian diplomat while encapsulating the method behind the day’s activity.

“We have put in motion what we believe is an effective way to address this issue, protect her dignity. We have communicated the essence we feel in diplomatic terms and also due to the human element,” said External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.