Pulwama aftermath: Kashmiri doctor says kids ‘ostracised’, mulls leaving Kolkata

The Kashmiri doctor, who claimed he was asked to leave Kolkata following the Pulwama attack, is considering bidding adieu to the city after his daughters complained of ostracism in school and neighbourhood.

The doctor, a cardiologist who has been living in Kolkata for the last 22 years, has claimed that a day after the terror attack, he was threatened of "dire consequences" if he continued to stay in the city with his family.

The Pulwama terror strike in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14 claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel and injured several others.

In spite of the threats, the doctor said on Monday that he would stay put after the West Bengal government came to his rescue.

The doctor's daughters, aged nine and seven, are students of one of the leading English-medium schools in the city.

Ananya Chakraborti, Chairperson of the West Bengal State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, who had been coordinating with the family and assured all support to them, said both the girls have been ostracised by their friends in school.

"The doctor told me that his daughters' friends are not interacting with them properly. I told him not to get tensed. I spoke to the school authorities and they said they will look into it," Chakraborti said.

Some kids who go to school with the doctor's daughters, all of a sudden, have stopped travelling with them, she said.

The doctor also told me that some children even stopped talking to his daughters, Chakraborti said.

"We have assured all support. But this is an alarming situation which is being deliberately created ahead of the elections, with the sole aim of polarisation," she said.

The doctor, who did not wish to be named, could not be contacted as he is not willing to speak to the media.

He had said on Monday that he was heckled but he did not pay much attention to the threats he received initially.

However, his concern grew when some men gathered outside his residence and threatened to harm his daughters, unless he "returned to Pakistan".

According to the doctor, on February 15, a day after the Pulwama attack, five men aged between 20 and 25 years had come to his house after he returned home from his chamber, asking him to leave the city immediately and "go back to Pakistan as Kashmiris have no place in this country".