US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US is monitoring what he called a surge in human rights abuses in India by some officials, in a rare open censure of the South Asian country's rights record by Washington.

"We regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values of human rights, and to that end, we are monitoring some recent concerning developments in India, including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police, and prison officials," Blinken said in a joint press briefing with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, and India's Defense Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday, the report said.

Blinken didn't go into detail. The human rights issue was not mentioned by Singh or Jaishankar, who spoke following Blinken at the briefing.

Blinken's comments come only days after US Representative Ilhan Omar questioned the US administration's purported hesitation to criticise Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government on human rights issues.

"What must Modi do to India's Muslim population before we no longer consider them a peace partner?" Last Monday, Omar, a member of President Joe Biden's Democratic Party, remarked.

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