'I'll Die Protecting Them': Indian Doctor Refuses To Leave Ukraine Without His Two Pet Panthers
Dr Kumar Bandi is a native of Tanuku town in West Godavari district of Andha Pradesh. He lives in Donbas a place around 850 km from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. He has been helping scores of Telugu students and others to reach the nearest border safely for evacuation to India.
While India has assisted several students to bring their pets back to the country from war-torn Ukraine, an Indian doctor has refused to leave the country without his two pet jaguars.
A doctor, from Andhra Pradesh, has decided to stay back in the bunker of his house in Ukraine as he does not want to leave behind his two pets 每 a leopard and a black panther.
Dr Kumar Bandi is a native of Tanuku town in West Godavari district of Andha Pradesh. He lives in Donbas, a place around 850 km from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, and has been helping scores of Telugu students and others to reach the nearest border safely for evacuation to India, a Times of India report said.
Girikumar Patil bought a jaguar and a panther from a zoo 20 months ago
Since Russia＊s attacks started, Kumar, also a Youtuber, has been uploading videos along with his big cats, and taking a stroll with them. ※I do not want to leave Ukraine as my pet jaguars will have none to look after them,§ he said.
※I can escape the bombing by fleeing to a neighboring country or returning to India. But I do not want my pet big cats to starve to death in my absence,§ he said in his vlog, adding about his interest in conserving wildlife.
Dr Patil went to Ukraine in 2007 to study medicine and later settled down in Donbas. He later joined a local government hospital as an orthopaedic.
He found the jaguar "orphaned an ill" in a local zoo and with the permission of authorities, adopted it. Dr Patil has named the animal Yasha. Two months ago, he brought the black panther Sabrina as a mate to Yasha.
The male jaguar is 20 months old and the female panther is a six-month-old cub.
The male jaguar is 20 months old and the female panther is a six-month-old cub.
"My big cats have been spending nights in the basement with me. There has been a lot of bombing happening around us. The cats are scared. They are eating less. I can't leave them," the 40-year-old told the BBC.
He hopes that the Indian government will allow him to take home all his pets. Last week, Indian student Rishabh Kaushik - a resident of Dehradun - returned to India with his rescued pet dig "Maliboo" as part of central government's Operation Ganga.
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