An Irish doctor of Pakistani origin was racially abused by a group of children outside a shopping complex in Navan town recently.
Dr Taimoor Salman estimates that children as young as 10 years old shouted ‘Mr Curry Man’ in a broken Indian accent at him, Laois Nationalist reported.
Salman worked as a medical registrar at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
The incident reportedly occurred last week when he went to the Blackcastle Shopping Centre in Navan, Co. Meath, to pick up a few groceries on his way home from work at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co. Louth.
He said he had stepped into his car and was reversing the vehicle when a young boy cycled in front of him and repeatedly shouted ‘Mr Curry Man’.
“I said he was being very rude and as I reversed an older boy, a young teen, came up and asked me if I had said something so I told him that his friend had been rude,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
“The older boy told me to shut up and then started doing impersonationations of Apu, the Indian shopkeeper in the Simpsons. I just left. I didn’t say anything more as they were children,” he said.
“I was stunned and upset. I have seen racial abuse and throwaway remarks first-hand to me and my colleagues at the hospital but I would never expect this from children who are generally very accepting of other nationalities,” he said.
“There seems to be a horrible pack mentality and this incident was insidious,” he said.
Taimoor was born in Ireland.
His father was a surgeon and worked in Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan.
He later moved to Saudi Arabia and the UK.
“I lived in Navan and went to primary school here and have nothing but good memories of the town as a child. I never experienced any racism here,” Salman told the newspaper.
“That’s part of the reason I came back to live here with my wife and young daughter in 2017 and after I began working in the hospital in Drogheda,” he said.
Salman’s parents were born in Pakistan.
Salman said he feels that walking in the streets of Navan has become too dangerous at night.
“This wave of hatred to people of colour is quite recent and increasingly more open and brash. I’ve been back in Ireland for 15 years. In 2017, it was a peaceful and safe place and I could walk anywhere at any time without fear. Now it is too unsafe and I would only go to crowded places,” he said.
