Acme of humiliation: Devyani was strip-searched?

The sources said that the IFS officer was put in a prison cell with sex workers and drug addicts besides being strip-searched in custody by the New York Police. She was also subjected to DNA swabbing in the prison, a technique employed by forensic scientists to assist in the identification of individuals by their respective DNA profiles, throwing all ethical diplomatic norms to wind.

"We are shocked and appalled at the manner in which she has been humiliated by the US authorities. We have taken it up forcefully with the US government through our embassy in Washington. We are also reiterating, in no uncertain terms, to US embassy here that this kind of treatment to one of our diplomats is absolutely unacceptable," Spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Syed Akabaruddin had said here while reacting to the treatment meted out to Khobragade.

However, the US state department maintained that standard procedures followed during Indian diplomat's arrest.

Sources said that she was held with common criminals and 39-year-old Khobragade, a 1999-batch IFS officer, was taken into custody last week on a street in New York as she was dropping her daughter to school and handcuffed in public on visa fraud charges before being released on a USD 250,000 bond after pleading not guilty in court.

Khobragade declined to comment on the issue for the media.

Meanwhile, in a major snub on Monday, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar cancelled her meeting with a senior US Congressional delegation in Delhi as a mark of protest against the treatment meted out to India's Deputy Consul General.

Kumar, herself a Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer who quit the service before joining politics, cancelled the meeting as she felt it was not 'appropriate' to meet the Parliamentarians of the US, which has badly treated one of India's senior diplomats, according to sources.

Significantly, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who also had a scheduled meeting with the five-member US team, did not meet them, apparently for the same reason.

The delegations comprised of Congressmen George Holding (Republican- North Carolina), Pete Olson (Republican- Texas) David Schweikert (Republican- Arizona), Robert Woodall (Republican- Georgia), Madeleine Bordallo (Democrat- Guam).

Monday's snub came after India reacted sharply to Devyani Khobragade's arrest last week by summoning US Ambassador Nancy Powell and issuing a demarche in this regard.