Several of the Bangladeshi patients undergoing treatment in Calcutta are keen on returning home, worried about their near and dear ones, but cannot do so because their treatment would be left incomplete.
Dulal Das, from Barisal in Bangladesh, has come to Calcutta to get wife Santana Rani treated for a cardiac ailment. Santana underwent an angiography at the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences on Tuesday.
The couple, along with Santana’s sister Basana, had come to Calcutta on July 27.
“Since I heard about yesterday’s development, I am very worried about our sons back home,” Dulal said while speaking to Metro at the hospital on Tuesday.
The sons, both in their 20s, run a photocopy store and a laundry.
“I called our sons yesterday and asked them to keep the store and the laundry closed. I asked them to stay home where they are probably safe,” said Das. “We are very worried and could not sleep at night.”
They cannot return to Barisal immediately because Santana’s treatment would remain incomplete.
Tuhin William Biswas, 32, an electrical engineer from Dhaka, has come to the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences with his parents, wife and younger brother for consultations with several doctors for each of them.
They had left home in Dhaka’s Basundhara at 11pm on Sunday.
“Although there was a curfew, buses were allowed to run. We chose to travel at night because the roads would be free of protesters then,” Biswas said on Tuesday.
They travelled 281km to reach the Benapole-Petrapole border.
“We reached the border at 5am but could enter India after 9am. The process was very slow,” he said.
Biswas said they came despite the turmoil because their visas would expire on August 17. “I was not sure whether we would get fresh visas, given the situation,” he said.
Biswas and his family want to return to Dhaka on August 8, after all the medical consultations are over, but are not sure whether it would be safe to travel by bus.
“On Wednesday, all of us would sit down and discuss whether to go by road or take a flight. Also, we are requesting the hospital authorities to prepare our reports faster,” Biswas said.
“We are worried about my 90-year-old grandmother and uncles and their families in Dhaka. We called home. As of now they are all safe,” he said.
Md Mijanur Rehman has come with daughter Laboni Begum for treatment at Peerless Hospital. The Jessore residents came by road and reached the city on Monday.
“My wife and our other daughter are at home. We are very worried about them. But we have to stay for a week for treatment,” he said on Tuesday.