A 34-year-old man was allegedly attacked on suspicion of being a COVID-19 patient and died after falling into a manhole during the assault in Kalyan town of Maharashtra's Thane district.
According to a report by news agency PTI, the incident took place on the morning of April 22, when Ganesh Gupta had stepped out of his home to purchase some essentials amid the COVID-19 lockdown.
When he saw a few policemen manning the road, he took an alternate route, where a few passersby attacked him when he coughed while walking, an official told PTI.
The men suspected him of being a COVID-19 patient and attacked him, causing him to fall into a gutter and die, the official said.
The deceased's body was sent for post-mortem and a case of accidental death has been registered as of now, the station house officer of the Khadakpada police station said.
Recently, a 55-year-old man who was admitted to the Kalpana Chawla Medical College in Karnal on the suspicion that he might have contracted coronavirus, fell to his death from the sixth floor of the hospital on Monday while allegedly trying to escape, police said.
On April 9, a 22-year-old man was allegedly beaten to death in DelhiĄ¯s Bawana after he was suspected of a conspiracy to spread COVID-19. The victim has been identified as Mehboob Ali, a resident of Harewali village in Bawana.
Police said Ali had gone to Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh for a Tablighi Jamaat conference and returned to the national capital in a truck of vegetables after 45 days.