India retaliates after US arrests diplomat A bulldozer removes the security barriers in front of the US embassy in New Delhi. New Delhi: India has launched a series of reprisals against US officials as outrage grows over a diplomat's arrest in New York, which New Delhi has branded "humiliating." In an escalating row over the arrest, the Indian government ordered a range of measures including the return of identity cards for US consular officials that speed up travel into and through India, foreign ministry sources said. "We have ordered the withdrawal of all ID cards that are issued by the Ministry of External Affairs to the officials at the US consulates across India," a senior ministry source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The government will also stop all import clearances for the US embassy, including liquor, the sources said, while Indian security forces removed barricades from outside the US embassy in New Delhi. The moves come after India's deputy consul general in the US, Devyani Khobragade, was arrested in New York last week while dropping her children off at school. Ms Khobragade was arrested for allegedly underpaying her domestic helper, who is also an Indian national, and for lying on the helper's visa application form. Anger over the incident has been mounting in the Indian press, with front-page reports on Tuesday claiming Ms Khobragade had been handcuffed and "strip-searched and confined with drug addicts" after her arrest. Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said on Tuesday the government had "put in motion" measures to address the arrest, calling Ms Khobragade's seizure "completely unacceptable." "We have put in motion what we believe would be effective ways of addressing the issue but also (put) in motion such steps that need to be taken to protect her dignity," Mr Khurshid said, without confirming new reprisals. US State Department deputy spokesman Marie Harf said on Monday that diplomatic security staff "followed standard procedures" during the arrest before Ms Khobragade was handed over to US Marshals. Ms Harf also said Khobragade only has immunity from prosecution with respect to duties performed as a consular official, under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The Indian embassy in Washington DC said on Friday that the detention was based on "allegations raised by the officer's former India-based domestic assistant." The domestic worker had "absconded" from her employer in June and was already the subject of an injunction issued by the High Court in Delhi, it said.