A 38-year-old woman who lives in Dubai had come to Calcutta to perform her father’s last rites in the third week of March. She is yet to go back.

The woman has two daughters — aged 5 years and 22 months — who are living with their father in Dubai.

“I talk to them every day. I keep telling them I will be back soon. But the truth is I don’t know when I will see them again,” said the woman, who is living with her mother in their family home in Santoshpur.

The woman works in the aviation sector and has not received any salary since April.

Her parents visited them often to take care of the grandchildren. Her father, who had COPD, had to be hospitalised in Dubai with pneumonia in late February. He was discharged and he came back to Calcutta with his daughter and wife on February 29.

The woman went back to Dubai on March 2 but had to make two more short visits to Calcutta after her father’s condition worsened and he needed hospitalisation in Calcutta.

Her father passed away on March 16. The woman came to the city a day later to perform the last rites.

“It seems Calcutta does not matter to the decision-makers,” said the woman, who is part of a WhatsApp group of people from the Gulf states who are stuck in India.

There are scores of such people in Calcutta, she said.

“Till June 2, there are two flights — from Delhi to Dubai and from Hyderabad to Abu Dhabi. But how will I reach Delhi or Hyderabad?” she rued.

She also pointed out that a clearance from the Dubai administration was mandatory for her to be able to book air tickets. “I had applied for the permission, but like many others stuck here, am yet to get the nod,” she said.