KOLKATA: The Kashmiri doctor, who was threatened and abused for two days because of his ethnicity, has received several offers of help from Kolkatans, some of whom have even opened up their home and hearth. But he may still leave the city he’s called home for the past 22 years, considering the safety of his family.The 42-year-old cardiologist from Srinagar, attached with a top nursing home in the city, is still distraught at how his daughters were being ostracised, even as the state government assured him a safe stay and several friends contacted him, offering their homes as a temporary refuge until the hatred blows over.On Friday, a group of six people had arrived at the doctor’s residence in southeast Kolkata and told him “to go back home to Kashmir”. Before leaving, they warned him that staying in this city would have “consequences” for him and his family. The doctor ignored the threat the first time, but the group of youths — all of them in saffron bandanas — came back, pushed him around and told him “to go back to Pakistan”. The group came back on Saturday and threatened to kill his daughters if they did not leave.On Monday, the doctor said he was shocked when his daughters told him how their friends stopped playing with them. “We did not even mention the incident to our daughters, who are nine and six. But they figured out something was wrong when they went to play on Sunday afternoon. The kids were instructed not to play with my daughters, as their parents feared they would be targeted next,” the doctor said.Matters took a turn for the worse when the cardiologist’s wife went to drop the kids off at the pool car they take to school every morning. “Another child, who avails the same pool car every morning, had left in another vehicle. Later, I came to know that her parents were also afraid about the safety of their kids,” said the doctor. “The parents of another child have reportedly asked her not to talk to my kids. I do not want to talk about this any longer, and we are planning to leave the city very soon.”On Monday morning, the shattered couple met Ananya Chatterjee, the chairperson of West Bengal State Commission for Protection of Child Rights. “I have asked them not to leave the city and assured them that all of us were with them,” Chatterjee told TOI. “Sadly, some of their neighbours and friends’ parents are avoiding them now. Bengal never had this culture of exclusion.... We will try to talk to the school authorities, so that their kids do not feel isolated. The incident is very shocking.”Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi, who has been talking to the administration and the victim’s family, said: “Whoever is doing this is doing a disservice to the country. The Kolkata Police has taken timely and appropriate action. I am yet to reach out to the doctor, but I want to assure him that this country belongs to each one of us.”

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