NEW DELHI: A former Congress MLA serving jail sentence in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case died due to COVID-19 at a hospital here, the second inmate of Mandoli prison to have succumbed to the infection, officials said on Sunday. Mahender Yadav (70) was a former MLA from Palam constituency. He was lodged in Jail no. 14 of Mandoli prison, where he was undergoing a sentence of 10 years, and had been hospitalised on June 26, they said.
Another convict Kanwar Singh, who died last month and had tested positive for coronavirus, was also lodged in Jail no. 14. Director General (Prisons) Sandeep Goel said that Yadav complained of uneasiness and some heart-related problems on June 26. He was taken to DDU Hospital, from where he was referred to LNJP Hospital the same day and admitted there.
Later, on his family’s request, he was shifted to a private hospital on June 30 under police guard. The former MLA’s son and Delhi Congress leader Raghuvindra Yadav alleged the jail authorities did not take care of his father and that they did not inform the family about his admission to hospital after he tested positive.
“We were not informed about his condition by the authorities. I got to know only on June 28 from someone that my father had been admitted to a hospital after testing positive for corona. I then requested the authorities to allow me to admit him to a private hospital,” he said. However, authorities denied the allegations and said that he was being looked after well and that they had called his family informing them on June 26 at the time of his admission at LNJP.
Second death
53 inmates of Tihar, Mandoli & Rohini have tested positive. So far, 31 have recovered while two have succumbed to the virus