Women from northeast face racial slur in Kolkata

KOLKATA: While the state struggles to fight the novel coronavirus, people from the Northeast living in Kolkata are battling racism. Several reports of linking people from the Northeast to the virus are pouring in. While most ignored the racist comments, some nurses attached with a hospital said they will lodge a police complaint.
A 24-year-old airline cabin crew member from Sikkim, who has been living in Kolkata for the past four years, was allegedly taunted by healthcare workers of a Tollygunge government hospital where she had to stay for a night on being suspected to have contracted Covid-19 two days ago. “First, the healthcare providers at the fever clinic of the hospital asked if I was Chinese. I was in pain and wasn’t in a condition to retort. Even as I explained I was suffering from UTI, they bundled me into the isolation ward,” said the woman.
“As I entered the so-called isolation ward, which is a dormitory, a woman patient screamed and asked the hospital staffers why a Chinese carrying the novel coronavirus was being admitted to the ward. I was shocked and very hurt,” the woman said. “I was in too much pain to protest. Luckily, the next afternoon they discharged me, advising home quarantine. This was a bitter experience in the city, which is my second home,” she said.
In another incident, a young nurse from Manipur attached with a private hospital was allegedly spat upon by a motorcyclist when she, along with her friend, stepped out of her paying guesthouse in Mukundapur on Sunday night. The duo was going to the hospital in the same area. “Two youths on motorcycle zipped passed them. One of them spat paan on the nurse, while the other shouted that these ‘coronaviruses’ were spreading Covid-19 in the city,” alleged a fellow nurse.
The two are planning to lodge a police complaint.