Fear Of Having Contracted COVID-19 Drives Lecturer To Suicide In Odisha’s Balangir

Balangir: The fear of having contracted novel coronavirus reportedly drove a lecturer to death in Balangir district of Odisha.

Local police has sent the body for post-mortem and initiated an inquiry into the incident.

Sources said that Prakash Chandra Sahu, who used to teach Odia at Rajendra Autonomous College, was a diabetic and had been suffering from cold for two-three days. He, with wife and children, had been living in a rented house for three years.

On Sunday night, Sahu slept separately as he thought he had been infected by the COVID-19 infection and didn’t want to pass it to his family members.

In the wee hours of Monday, Sahu was found hanging from the ceiling of his room.

Sahu’s landlord Dr Ashok Kumar Sethy, a Homeopathy medical officer at Khujenpali, said that a doctor had advised Sahu to undergo COVID-19 test. He didn’t, fearing a positive report.

“His wife, with her child, knocked my door at around 3.30 am and called me to their house… I rushed there to find him hanging from the ceiling  with blood all over his body. I immediately called up police,” Sethy informed.