India, April 2 -- A Hyderabad-based techie has claimed he was asked to continue working during his paternity leave, even as his premature newborn was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), triggering outrage online over workplace insensitivity.

In a Reddit post titled "My manager asked me to work during paternity leave despite having informed about it 5 months before", the techie said he had recently become a father to a premature baby who required NICU care due to respiratory distress. He claimed that despite informing both his manager and HR in advance about availing two weeks of paternity leave in April, he was still contacted for work and assigned tasks.

"I informed my manager that this is the situation he still called...