NEW DELHI: A 58-year-old Central Industrial Security Force personnel posted at the GRSEL, a warship manufacturing facility in Kolkata, has succumbed to the novel coronavirus, officials said on Friday.
They said head constable Susanta Kumar Ghosh, a resident of Murshidabad district of West Bengal, succumbed to the disease on Thursday.
He was suffering from a kidney ailment and had tested positive for COVID-19 on May 12 and admitted to a hospital isolation centre in Kolkata, they said.
This is the fourth death from coronavirus in the about 1.
62 lakh personnel strong force and the second from this unit of GRSEL, a defence PSU located in Kolkata.
Earlier, a 55-year-old Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) rank official from this unit had succumbed to the virus.
An official posted at the Indian Museum in Kolkata and another in the unit that guards the Mumbai international airport have been the earlier COVID-19 casualties in the force.
At least 40 CISF personnel of the GRSEL unit have been infected with the disease and as per latest data, only one personnel is under treatment, while the rest have recovered.
The Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineers Limited (GRSEL), under the administrative control of the Defence Ministry, was entrusted with building four Anti-Submarine Warfare Corvettes (ASWCs) for the Navy, all of which have been delivered.
It is a strategically important and sprawling warship building facility that caters to the combat vessel requirements of not only the Navy but also the Coast Guard.
The GRSEL has both wet and dry docks for shipbuilding and trial purposes which opens on the riverfront.
Over 400 armed CISF personnel were deployed here in 2016 for providing an anti-terror cover to the facility backed by vehicle-borne quick reaction teams.
With this death, the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) of the CRPF, BSF, ITBP, CISF and SSB have suffered a total of eight causalities among them.
Two deaths each have been reported in the Central Reserve Police Force and the Border Security Force.
These forces, also called paramilitary forces, also reported at least 22 fresh coronavirus cases on Friday.
The CRPF reported five fresh cases, Indo-Tibetan Border Police nine, CISF seven and the Border Security Force had one case.
As per official data accessed by PTI, these forces have had a total of 1,340 positive cases till date out of which only 430 are under treatment at present.
A total of 910 personnel have recovered till now, the data said.
The about 10 lakh personnel strong paramilitary forces are deployed for rendering a variety of internal security duties and border guarding and they function under the Union Home ministry.