Indian doctor refuses to leave Ukraine without his pet panther and jaguar
Categories: DAILY NEWS FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Even as hundreds of Indian students remain stuck in Ukraine awaiting evacuation, an Indian doctor there is facing a unique conundrum. Kumar, an orthopaedic doctor who goes by the name Jaguar Kumar on social media, is holed up in a bunker under his house near Donbas in south-eastern Ukraine with his pets — a jaguar named Yagwar and a black panther named Sabrina.Kumar, who settled in Ukraine after completing his MBBS degree there, has been regularly documenting his struggles while taking care of the two big cats and procuring food for them amid the war, on his YouTube channel ‘Jaguar Kumar Telugu’, which has over 84,000 subscribers. Kumar, who was once an aspiring actor, moved to Ukraine to pursue MBBS and continued to work there. After several failed attempts to adopt a lion cub or a Bengal tiger cub, he said he was informed by a local zoo about two years ago that they had a jaguar in poor health. After the animal was treated and its health restored, Kumar said he obtained necessary permissions and brought him home. More recently, he brought home Sabrina, a black panther. Speaking about the expenses and difficulties of raising them, he said that he began making YouTube videos hoping for supplementary income to take care of his pets. Days before the war began, Kumar said in a video, “Until my last moment I will strive to protect them (Yagwar and Sabrina). There is no way I will leave the kids behind. We just have to survive at any cost.”He said he hoped that the Indian government would allow him to bring home his pets, which also include three dogs. Several Indian citizens returning from Ukraine have brought along their pets, mainly cats and dogs.