The simmering tension between New Delhi and Washington over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York has escalated into a major row with the boycott of a visiting US Congressional delegation by India's political leaders.

India has also asked on Tuesday that all US diplomats stationed in India to turn in their identity cards. Police barricades outside the US embassy in New Delhi have been removed and access for US diplomatic staff to airports curtailed. More retaliatory measures are expected, reports said.

Also on Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi, Congress party vice-president, and federal home minister Sushilkumar Shinde refused to meet the visiting delegation in protest against the "despicable and barbaric" treatment meted to the arrested diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York.

The five-member delegation to New Delhi, facing a general boycott, is led by Congressman George Holding, representative for North Carolina's 13th congressional district, who serves on the foreign affairs committee and judiciary committee. The four other Congressmen were Pete Olson, David Schweikert, Robert Woodall and Madeliene Bordallo.

News of Khobragade being lodged in a prison cell in the company of drug addicts and being subject to a strip search have angered India's mandarins and political bosses. The diplomat was also subject to a DNA swab.

The spat between the United States and India strikes a discordant note at a time when relationship between the two countries is otherwise on a high, especially in the last one decade which has seen unprecedented cooperation in various areas of civilian and defence sectors.

Reacting to the Khobragade's incarceration, India's national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon described the treatment as "despicable and barbaric."

Media reports quoting Indian government sources said New Delhi is considering "reciprocal steps" later on Tuesday so as to "convey a clear message that this treatment of the diplomat is unacceptable."

On Monday, speaker of the lower house (Lok Sabha) of India's parliament Meira Kumar declined to meet the visiting US congressional delegation.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Daniel Arshack, the diplomat's lawyer, called the charges "a significant error in judgment."

"We think that when a senior American diplomat sits with a senior Indian diplomat, the decision will be made that this is an ill-conceived notion and this case should be abandoned," Arshack said. But he refused to answer the specific allegations against the diplomat.

Handcuffed in public

The Indian diplomat, aged 39, was arrested on Thursday as she was dropping her daughter to school. She was handcuffed in public and later freed on bail worth $250,000.

US police accuse Khobragade of lying in her visa application for the purposes of recruiting an Indian national who was employed as housekeeper at her home and was paid less than $ 4 an hour, which is lower than US minimum wages.

Her father Uttam Khobragade, a former civil officer in India, was quoted by the NDTV news channel as saying, "My daughter is brave, but I'm worried. There's more than what meets the eye."

After her arrest, India's foreign secretary Sujatha Singh summoned the US envoy in New Delhi, Nancy Powell, and protested over the "unacceptable treatment" meted out to Khobragade, a senior consular officer.

The US has defended its actions saying its Marshals followed standard procedures. Countering India's stand that the arrest flouted the Vienna convention governing diplomatic immunity, the US said diplomats enjoyed immunity from their courts only in the exercise of their consular functions.

"We understand that this is a sensitive issue for many in India," said Marie Harf, State Department deputy spokeswoman.

"Accordingly, we are looking into the intake procedures surrounding this arrest to ensure that all appropriate procedures were followed and every opportunity for courtesy was extended."

India has said even if a diplomat is arrested for a purported serious crime, all courtesies must be extended to the diplomat and not be treated like a common criminal.