'What is this?': Bihar CM Nitish Kumar pulls down newly-appointed doctor's hijab at govt event, stokes controversy

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar sparked a row after he pulled the hijab (veil) off a newly recruited AYUSH doctor while she was receiving her letter of appointment.

The incident, a video clip of which has gone viral on social media, took place at ‘Samvad’, the CM's secretariat, where appointment letters were given away to more than 1,000 AYUSH doctors.

According to the CMO, the appointees included 685 Aurveda doctors, while 393 were Homeopaths and 205 practised the Unani system of medicine. Out of them, 10 appointees were handed over job letters by Kumar, while the rest got those online.

When it was the turn of Nusrat Parveen, who had turned up wearing a hijab across her face, the 75-year-old CM frowned and exclaimed "what is this?".

The chief minister, who stood atop a raised platform, then bent down and pulled the hijab down.

The flustered appointee was, thereafter, hastily pulled aside by an official present on the occasion, while Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary, who stood beside Kumar, was seen tugging at the latter's sleeve, in an apparent bid to restrain him.

Meanwhile, opposition parties like the RJD and Congress shared the video clip on their social media accounts, and claimed that the incident was the latest proof of the JD(U) supremo's "unstable mental health".

Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (PDP) reacting to the video asked, "Does one attribute it to old age or the normalisation of humiliating Muslims publicly?"

With PTI inputs