The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday asked the Saudi diplomat accused of sexual assault on two Nepalese women to cooperate with the Haryana Police in the investigation. The diplomat has been asked to give his version and respond to the Haryana Police’s queries in the case. Meanwhile, the two women returned to Kathmandu on Thursday after Gurgaon Police conducted a second medical examination on them.
“MEA Chief of Protocol called in Saudi Ambassador (Saud Mohammed al-Sati) today and conveyed the request of Haryana police for cooperation by the Embassy in the case of the two Nepalese citizens,” MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
Sources said the diplomat in question has not left India and is still working in the Embassy of Saudi Arabia. The diplomat is accused of rape and torture by two Nepalese women working as housemaids at his house in Gurgaon. However, the diplomat enjoys full immunity against any civil or criminal cases under the Vienna Convention. The Saudi Government can withdraw the diplomat if it wants to.
Gurgaon Police on Wednesday evening sent to the MEA a detailed report relating to the case and their investigations. The report was sent after the medical examinations of the two women confirmed rape and sodomy.
The Saudi Ambassador had registered a protest with the MEA on Wednesday against the police’s “intrusion” into a diplomat’s house against “all diplomatic conventions” and in a statement to the media termed the allegations as “false.”
Meanwhile, Nepal Embassy in New Delhi remained in touch with the MEA and Gurgaon Police in connection with the case. Nepal Embassy officials met Gurgaon Police Commissioner Navdeep Singh Virk at his office and discussed the details. “We are here to know the development,” said Rajendra Man Shrestha, a counsellor at the Nepal Embassy, after the meeting.
Even as a group of women’s rights activists held a protest outside Saudi Arabian Embassy on Thursday demanding action against the diplomat.
The police requested the MEA to inform it about any international or other protocols to be followed in such cases.
“I believe that we have carried out a quick, transparent and scientific investigation so far in this case, and presented our findings before the MEA, New Delhi. We are awaiting further instructions from the MEA which has to guide and assist us in carrying this investigation further,” Virk said, adding that the finer details of the investigation cannot be revealed at this stage as the “matter is sensitive and may affect relations between the two nations”.
Gurgaon Police also conducted a second medical examination of the two Nepalese women to further amplify upon the findings of the first medical report and to get the opinion of a committee of doctors instead of just one doctor, said officials.
This is not the first time Saudi diplomats have been mired in controversy. In February this year, a Saudi diplomat in United Kingdom was accused of keeping two trafficked women, one from Indonesia and the other from the Philippines, as domestic help and treating them like slaves. He was also accused of racial discrimination against them and denying them minimum wages.