India flays US over visa refusal to Modi

"The action on the part of the US embassy is uncalled for and displays lack of courtesy and sensitivity towards a constitutionally elected chief minister of a state of India," the external affairs ministry said in a statement.

A ministry spokesman said New Delhi had lodged "a strong protest" with the US deputy chief of mission, Robert Blake, and urged Washington to reconsider the decision.

"Foreign Secretary (Shyam) Saran has asked us to review the decision. I will report it back to Washington," Blake told reporters outside the South Block, which houses the external affairs ministry.

The spokesman said: "The government of India expresses its deep concern and regret that the embassy of the US has denied a visa to Modi ... to visit the US for an event organised by the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association.

"The visa has been requested by the ministry of external affairs through a note verbale to the embassy on Feb 28, 2005.

The US embassy announced earlier Friday that Modi's tourist and business visa, issued in 1998, had been revoked under the Immigration and Nationality Act over his involvement in the Gujarat violence. A diplomatic visa was also denied to him.

Meanwhile, Almost two years before the US denied Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a visa, a State Department report on global human rights had held him responsible for the 2002 sectarian violence in his state.

The 2003 edition of Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, prepared annually by the US Department of State, had found Modi guilty of fuelling violence that it claimed had resulted in the deaths of "an estimated 2,000 Muslims".

It was on the basis of this report that the US invoked against Modi a law that makes any foreign government official guilty of serious violations of religious freedom ineligible for a visa.