‘People from your faith kill others. Don’t come to me again,’ Kolkata doctor told pregnant Muslim woman – Alt News

Days after a Kolkata-based lawyer alleged in a Facebook post that a Hindu doctor had refused to treat a pregnant Muslim woman from her family, multiple media outlets came up with contradictory reports about the alleged incident.

Mehfuza Khatun shared the Facebook post on April 24, two days after the Pahalgam attack in which 26 people were killed. She alleged that gynaecologist Dr C K Sarkar had “refused” to treat her pregnant sister-in-law on account of the latter’s faith. A call recording was also released by the patient’s family, where one voice is heard confronting the other about some remarks made earlier.

This was a time when reports of retributive hate crimes against minorities started pouring in from various parts of the country in response to the Pahalgam massacre. According to survivors’ accounts, the terrorists had tried to single out non-Muslims from the tourists.

Alt News spoke with the patient and her husband and examined the phone from which calls were made to the doctor and her messages were received. Our investigation independently established that the doctor had indeed made Islamophobic comments and asked the patient to never go back to her since “people from her religion killed others.”

What Exactly Happened at Dr C K Sarkar’s Clinic on April 24

According to the aggrieved patient’s testimony given in the presence of her husband, she called up Dr Sarkar around 1:30 in the afternoon on April 24 and asked whether Dr Sarkar would be available at her home clinic in Maheshtala which is in the same apartment complex where the patient lived. Dr Sarkar agreed to see her between 3 and 4 pm. This was the fifth time she was visiting Dr Sarkar.

When the patient visited the clinic with her three-year-old daughter, and stated her full name, the doctor appeared offended. She then said, “I have decided not to see Mohammedan patients henceforth.”

When asked why, the doctor responded, “You’re killing people in Kashmir.” The patient replied, “What do I have to do with that?” The doctor then said, “People from your religion are killing people from my religion… how do I treat Mohammedan patients after that?”

The patient told us that she could only respond by saying, “The ones who are doing it are ignorant and uneducated.” The doctor allegedly then went on a communal rant in front of the three-year-old child, which lasted about 15 minutes. The patient could not recall everything that was said to her, as she “went blank”. Some of the remarks she remembered included, “You go to mosques and madrassas, and that is where terrorists are made”; and, “If you were on your honeymoon and your husband had been killed by people from my religion, then you would realise how painful it is.”

After her communal rant, the doctor clinically examined the patient and wrote out a prescription. The consultation fee was paid via UPI. As the patient was leaving the clinic, the doctor told her not to return, stating that she would no longer be seeing Muslim patients. However, she wrote ‘Review after 3 weeks’ in the prescription. Alt News has seen the prescription.

Once the patient left the clinic, she called up her husband immediately and recounted her ordeal. Some time later, at 4:26 pm, she gathered courage to call up Dr Sarkar again and confront her about the incident. This call had been recorded on the patient’s phone.

The Phone Call: “I won’t see any Mohammedan patients anymore… Don’t ever come to me again. You kill others.”

Here is a transcript of the conversation that took place:

Patient: *address* theke bolchi
I’m speaking from *address*.

Doctor: Hain bolo bolo
Yes, go ahead, speak.

Patient: Apni amake jei kotha gulo shonalen na ma’am, amar khub kharap legeche.
Ma’am, the things you said to me really hurt me.

Doctor: Keno? Ki kharap legeche?
Why? What hurt you?

Patient: Apni amake je bollen Mohammedan aar dekhbona.
You told me you won’t treat Mohammedans anymore.

Doctor: Dekhbona toh, ami ekhon theke promise korchi.
I won’t, I’m promising from now on.

Patient: Amar uchit chhilo apnake oi muhurte oshomman kore beriye chole asha.
I should have humiliated you and walked out at that very moment.

Doctor: (Unclear) Amar ki boye geche, ami aar dekhbona ekhon theke.
(Unclear) What do I have to lose? I won’t treat (Muslims) anymore from now on.

Patient: Na na, ami jabo o na apnar kache dekhate. But apnara skhikkhito… (unclear)
No, no, I won’t come to you for treatment either. But you are educated…

Overlapping voices…

Doctor: Tomra khun korbe… manush ke… (unclear) j dhormo bole khushir Eid.. Pabitra Eid.. (unclear)… manush ke khun kora ta ki pabitra Eid?
You people will kill… people… (unclear) the religion which celebrates Happy Eid, auspicious Eid… Killing people is auspicious Eid?

Patient: Accha ma’am, onekshomoy toh ache jara Hindu ra Muslim ke maarche… Amra ki kichu jani je ke maaarche, ke korche?
Ma’am, there are also times when Hindus kill Muslims… Do we even know who is killing whom?

(Doctor’s words are unclear for some time)

Doctor: Tomra shob jeneo chup kore thaako…(unclear)
You all stay silent even after knowing everything…(unclear)

Patient: Apni amake bokchen. Ami ki jani je ami ki korchi? Apni ekta shikkhito manush hoye erom byabohaar koren…
You’re scolding me..  You’re an educated person behaving in this way with me…

(Doctor’s words are unclear for some time)

Doctor: Tomader (unclear) shekhano hoy.
You people are taught (unclear).

Patient: Apni ekta shikkhito daktar hoye amar shonge… apni patient dekhben. Apni patient er shaathe orokom byabohaar korun.. koren tahole…
You, being an educated doctor, should be treating patients. If you treat patients like this then…

Doctor: Na ami dekhbo na, keno dekhbo, je dhormer lokera amar dhormo ke ebhabe maare?
No, why should I treat them? Why would I treat people of a religion who attack my religion like this?

Patient: Keu kauke marchena… (unclear)
No one is killing anyone… (unclear)

Patient: Ami apnake patient dekhate gechi, ami toh maarte jaini ghore.
I came to you as a patient, not to kill anyone in your house.

Doctor: Hain oitoh bari giyei tomar mathar modhhye shob dhukiye diyeche oigulo, jani toh.
Of course, those things have been stuffed into your head at home, I know that.

Patient: Barite keu dhokayeni madam… apni amake bollen… khub kharap lagchilo.
No one has brainwashed me at home, madam… Whatever you said to me… I felt very bad.

Doctor: Kharap lagar kichu nei, tumi jeta kharap (unclear) jara terrorist taader ke mere dite hobe.
There’s nothing to feel bad about. What is wrong… (unclear)… the terrorists must be killed.

Patient: Apnake osomman korbona bole apnake dekhiye ami elam. Apni khub kharap byabohaar korechen amar shaathe.
I did not want to humiliate you, hence I sat through the consultation. You misbehaved with me.

Doctor: Na ekdom kharap korini. Ami aar ekdom e dekhbona, ami aar kono Mohammedan patient dekhbona.
No, I didn’t behave badly at all. I just won’t treat… I won’t treat any Mohammedan patients anymore.

Patient: Apni dekhben na, apni bhaar mein jaan apni dekhben ki dekhben na, apnar byapar.
Whether you treat or not, you go to hell.. whether you treat or not, that’s your business.

Doctor: Asho keno amar kache? Lojja korena ashte?
Then why do you come to me? Don’t you feel ashamed to come here?

Patient: Ami jaani apni ekta boro terrorist?
I know you’re a big terrorist, right?

Doctor: Aar konodin ashbena amar kache. Tumi khun koro manush.
Don’t ever come to me again. You kill others.

Patient: Apnio khun kora manush.
You also kill people.

It is clear from the above conversation that when Dr Sarkar was confronted about her remarks, she remained defiant and repeated that she would not be treating Muslim patients in future.

After the Facebook post describing the patient’s ordeal had gone viral, Dr Sarkar sent an apology text to the patient.  In her messages sent through WhatsApp, she said she was sorry if she had ‘disheartened’ the patient. She says that she was sick “due to loss of my close family members relatives.” (sic) “Don’t take it otherwise and don’t harrass me unnecessarily”. Dr Sarkar, in a third message, said that a few patients had been cruel towards her in the last few days. She was upset and thinking of closing her practice in the area, and so she said that. “U r my good patient I will always take care of u if u feel so ,” (sic) she wrote. Alt News is in possession of a screenshot and a screen recording of the WhatsApp chat, but we are not making it public.

“If she is trying to justify why she said something, she must have said something reprehensible”, the patient’s husband observed, while showing us the WhatsApp messages.

After the patient’s ordeal was reported by some media outlets, Dr Sarkar went on to issue a video statement saying, “I am Dr C K Sarkar. I have been a medical practitioner for the last 30 years in Behala, South 24 Parganas. I believe in medical ethics. All patients are equal to me, I prioritize all my patients equally. I see no value in caste, religion and race. I try to treat my patients properly and ethically. If some people had a problem with me… please do not listen to the rumours. I know there have been attempts to sabotage my career on social media and in news reports. These kinds of rumours are spread during a time of crisis. I hope you will not fall for it.” The statement was uploaded on Facebook by an anesthesiologist named Promod Ranjan Roy.

The ‘Domestic Help’ Theory

When The Quint contacted Dr. Sarkar, she denied the allegations and stated that she had many Muslim patients and thus had no reason to discriminate. “I was talking to my maid about what had happened in Pahalgam when she (the patient) visited me. I never made such communal remarks, why would I?” She also stated that she had sent an apology to the patient. When asked about the call recording, Dr Sarkar alleged that the call recording had been tampered with.

She made the same allegation in a chat with a journalist named Anindya Chowdhury. “I never said that I would not see Mohammedan (Muslim) patients. She wrongly interpreted my words,” she said in a telephonic interview. Throughout the interview, Dr Sarkar reiterated that the phone call recording had been tampered with.

The West Bengal Doctors’ Forum (WBDF) said in a statement, “It appears that some discussions unrelated to the patient, involving members of the doctor’s household, may have inadvertently been overheard. If any such conversation was not to the patient’s liking, it is beyond the professional purview of the doctor to address private matters of household conversations.”

Responding to these claims, the patient told Alt News that at no point did the doctor address her house-help while making those remarks. The house-help’s working hours coincided with the patient’s appointment, and she was present around the house. She had left a few minutes before the patient’s departure. The patient also categorically stated that when Dr. Sarkar asked her not to go back to her ever again, the domestic help had left by then.

WBDF also asked for “an independent investigation involving the doctor and the aggrieved person to unearth the truth in a neutral way.”

Propaganda Outlets Question Veracity of Call Recording

Taking a dig at The Quint for reporting on the incident, propaganda website OpIndia published a ‘fact-check’ of the incident. OpIndia called the patient’s ordeal a “fake story” and proceeded to provide what they called ‘evidences’ to invalidate it. While refuting the patient’s allegations, OpIndia has claimed that the phone call recording is ‘unverified’. The outlet emphasized the need for a forensic investigation of the purported audio clip.

OpIndia posted a thread of their ‘fact-check’. Here are the archive links of each tweet of the thread: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

#Exclusive 🧵

Do you remember the story of a Kolkata-based doctor who ‘denied’ treatment to a Muslim patient over the Pahalgam terror attack?

Turns out it was fake news.

It was peddled by The Quint, Maktoob Media & others to create the narrative of ‘Muslim victimhood’

(1/n) pic.twitter.com/tWIxxbo1su

— OpIndia.com (@OpIndia_com) April 30, 2025

Only Fact, run by Vijay Patel who identifies himself as an investigative reporter, published a fact-check as well. Quoting Dr Sarkar, they also claimed that the recording was fake and edited. Here is an archive of the ‘fact-check’.

No, Dr. Champakali Sarkar Did Not Refuse Treatment to a Muslim Patient After Pahalgam Attackhttps://t.co/0ag5l5yBDJ

— Only Fact (@OnlyFactIndia) April 30, 2025

When this correspondent visited the patient’s house on May 1, Alt News received access to the phone from which the call to Dr Sarkar was made. We examined it by going to the Phone app (inbuilt app), from which the call was made, and played the recording. The call was made at 4:26 pm on April 24.

A screen-recording of the whole process can be seen below. The dialed number (that of the doctor) has been purposely hidden. Alt News tried to reach out to Dr Sarkar on the same number. The person who answered the call identified herself as Dr Sarkar, but refused to comment.

From the video of the call recording and the metadata of the video, we can conclusively say that the call recording released by the victim’s family has not been tampered with. Consequently, it can also be ascertained that Dr Sarkar admitted to making communal remarks while defending herself, where she generalized Muslims as people who kill others.

“I don’t have a problem with the doctor refusing to treat my wife in future. Though it is perhaps unethical, it is her call. What I strongly object to is the communal discrimination. What she told my wife is an expression of a mindset that has the potential to disrupt communal harmony in a society. That is what bothers me so much,” the husband of the patient, who is an optometrist by profession, said.

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