Child rape: MHA asks Karnataka to approach French Consul General

The Home Ministry has asked the Karnataka Police to approach the French Consul General in Banglaore to get access to Pascal Mazurier, a diplomat of that country's diplomatic mission who is accused of raping his daughter.

Official sources said Mazurier is now taking shelter at the French Consulate General in Bangalore and has not come out of the complex.

Since the diplomatic mission is a French property, police so far have not been able to enter it and hence no action has been taken against him.

"We have asked the Karnataka Police to approach the French Consul General to get access to Mazurier," a source said.

Police have registered a case of rape against Mazurier.Meanwhile, External Affairs Ministry sources said Mazurier, Deputy Head of Chancery in the Consulate of France, Bangalore, "holds a service passport and not a diplomatic passport" and does not have diplomatic immunity. He can be tried in India, they said.

The child's mother Suja Jones Mazurier, an Indian, reported the case to police with the help of a Bangalore-based NGO after her maid told her that her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, was allegedly sexually abused.

Suja had in a letter to Home Minister P Chidambaram and External Affairs Minister S M Krishna also appealed to the government to ensure that the official faces trial in India.