A response is awaited to what we conveyed to them yesterday," said an official, amid speculation that Saudi government may withdraw the accused from India.
A day after the Saudi Arabian ambassador Saud Mohammed Alsati was called to the ministry of external affairs (MEA) and told to cooperate in the probe into the alleged rape of two Nepalese women, officials here say there was no word yet from the mission of the powerful Gulf nation. Chief of protocol in the MEA, Jaideep Mazumdar, had asked Alsati to allow the police to question the diplomat and his family. "A response is awaited to what we conveyed to them yesterday," said an official, amid speculation that Saudi government may withdraw the accused from India.
Asked whether Saudi Arabia has invoked diplomatic immunity of the accused diplomat, charged with confining and raping the women in his house in Gurgaon, official sources said that India has not been informed about any such move. Experts here believe that it is clear from the government choosing the office of chief of protocol to summon and interact with the Saudi envoy in place of the joint secretary (Gulf) Thanglura Darlong that a great deal of diplomatic caution is being exercised by India. It is also a message to Saudi Arabia that New Delhi respects and regards the country, but wants it to take some quick decision on the accused diplomat's future. "If they don't waive immunity, India can ask them to withdraw the diplomat -- and that's what is expected to happen in this case," a senior diplomat told dna. The accused diplomat along with his family is currently lodged at the Saudi embassy premises. Officials have hinted that he may return to Riyadh in a few days.
This diplomatic crisis has hit two countries at a time when two Indian warships — INS Delhi and INS Trishul — are on a goodwill mission at Jubail Port in Saudi Arabia. The ships are part of the western fleet of four warships — Deepak, Delhi, Tabar and Trishul — which are on a month-long deployment to the Gulf to engage in naval exercises with friendly regional navies. Recently, in a sign of burgeoning defence ties between the two nations, a contingent of Indian Air Force fighter aircraft also landed in Saudi Arabia for the first time. The mission, comprising more than 100 high-ranking IAF officers and airmen onboard Sukhoi MKI fighter aircraft, C-17 Globe Masters, C-130 Super Hercules and IL-78 aircraft, landed in Taif l.
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