NEW YORK (AP) A New York City police officer has been detained in India on a weapons charge after authorities there discovered three bullets he accidentally packed in his luggage, police officials said Friday.
Officer Manny Encarnacion was arrested early last month while traveling in New Delhi, where he was visiting his wife. He's been barred from leaving the country until the case is resolved, the officials said.
New York Police Department Deputy Chief Kim Royster said his agency was working with the State Department to try to get the charges dropped so Encarnacion could return to the United States.
In a letter dated Friday, Rep. Peter King asked Secretary of State John Kerry to look into the situation. The New York Republican called the arrest "an excessive act by the Indian government" and suggested it was payback for last year's arrest and strip-search of an Indian consular official for alleged visa fraud in New York.
Devyani Khobragade was a deputy consul general in New York when she was arrested in December near her children's Manhattan school on charges she overworked and underpaid her Indian housekeeper. The arrest shook U.S.-Indian relations, with India removing concrete traffic barriers around the U.S. Embassy and revoking diplomats' ID cards. Khobragade maintained she was not guilty and also had immunity, but she complied with a Department of State request to leave the United States.