A Bangladeshi businessman came to Calcutta for his wife’s treatment in February with a plan to stay in the city for six days.
But Md Khairul Amin and his family had to stay here for more than six months after his wife developed complications following a procedure and now, when they are planning to take a flight back to Dhaka, they are facing a renewed uncertainty.
Amin, 39, who is in the city with wife Tahamina and son Sadman Shajahan, had booked tickets on the US Bangla flight from Calcutta for Tuesday. But the authorities in Bangladesh announced that the Dhaka airport would be closed till 10.30pm (IST) on Monday and uncertainty hung over Tuesday’s flight operations.
“I have been trying to contact the airline since hearing in the afternoon that the Dhaka airport was shut but have not been able to get in touch with them. So I am going to their office in Calcutta,” Amin, a resident of Mohammadpur in Dhaka, said on Monday evening.
“Now that the protests are over and the military has taken over, we hope things will become normal. But we don’t know how we will get back home after arriving at the Dhaka airport,” he said.
Amin’s home is around 12km from the airport.
The family had come to Calcutta on February 2 and Tahamina underwent a procedure at a private hospital on February 26.
“However, there were complications, which forced me to extend our visa. We had initially planned to stay for six days but have ended up staying for six months,” said Amin.
His wife has undergone five procedures at four hospitals in all these months and Amin had to spend around ₹20 lakh for the treatment.
In these six months, he returned home twice to sell some of their land and mortgage his wife’s jewellery to raise money for her treatment.
The last surgery was at the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, from where she was discharged recently.
“My school-going son is 15. Many of his friends had joined the protests. He is in touch with them,” said Amin.
The family stayed at a hotel in the New Market area and then in rented accommodations in Salt Lake and Mukundapur.
Sohail Rana, 30, who underwent treatment for a spine problem at Peerless Hospital, is also scheduled to go back home to Bangladesh on Tuesday. He lives in Rajshahi district’s Charghat.
“We came to Calcutta on Friday. We came by road to the Darshana border and then took a train to Calcutta. We want to return by the same route but don’t know whether we will be able to do that,” said Munjurul Haque, Rana’s brother-in-law.
They are staying at a hotel in Mukundapur, on the south-eastern fringes of Calcutta.
Hospitals in Calcutta said the footfall of patients from Bangladesh has dipped sharply in the last two to three days.
“Usually, around 100 patients from Bangladesh turn up in our outpatient department daily. In the past two days, the figure dropped to 30,” said an official at RN Tagore hospital.
At Peerless Hospital, around 170 Bangladeshi patients visit the OPD daily. On Monday, the number was less than 130.
“The number had dipped to one or two in July before going up. Now we are expecting it to dip further because of the unrest,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of Peerless Hospital.