Bhardwaj, an engineer in Singapore-based shipping company Transocean Limited, was kidnapped along with four colleagues from different countries when their ship Sampatiki was at sea, around 30 nautical miles off Nigerian capital Lagos.
The newly-appointed lawyer for Prabhu Dayal, the Indian Consul General in New York, has said that the forced labour charges filed by his client's former maid, are "ill founded".
A former domestic help, who had accused Indian Consul General in New York Prabhu Dayal of making sexual advances, has now dropped the "sexual harassment" charges in an amended complaint filed in a United States court in New York. Santosh Bhardwaj, 45, had filed a forced labour-suit against Dayal on June 20 this year accusing him of treating her as a slave and making sexual advances.
Santosh Bhardwaj, the maid who has sued a top Indian diplomat in New York for alleged forced labour, was scared to take legal action against him given his high profile stature, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
Prabhu Dayal, the Indian Consul General in New York, has been accused of treating a former domestic help as a slave and making sexual advances, a charge rejected by Dayal as "complete nonsense". Santosh Bhardwaj, Dayal's former maid, has filed a forced labour-suit against him for making her work for long hours everyday at $300 a month, confiscating her passport and making her sleep in a storage closet. She has also accused him of making sexual advances.
The case of Devyani Khobragade, a top Indian diplomat accused of fraud by her domestic help, is the third instance where maids working for diplomats at the Indian consulate General in New York have complained against their employers.
Santosh Bharadwaj, who was held captive by pirates in Nigeria for 45 days, speaks about his ordeal in captivity.
Devyani Khobragade, deputy consul general at the Indian consulate in New York, was arrested on charges that she allegedly presented fraudulent documents to the United States State Department in support of a visa application for an Indian national employed as a babysitter and housekeeper at her home in Manhattan.
Contracts with India-based domestic assistants for officials abroad have become a headache for the Indian government.
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