BHOPAL: A 43-year-old Inspector of Indore district police, who tested positive for the deadly coronavirus around a fortnight back, died due to cardiac arrest at a private hospital in Indore in the wee hours on Sunday. This is the first casualty to the deadly virus from the police fraternity in Madhya Pradesh.
Devendra Chandravanshi, who hails originally from Shajapur district of Madhya Pradesh was posted as in charge of Juni Indore police station before being hospitalised at the SAIMS Hospital around a fortnight back.
While no contact history/source for the infection of the cop has been traced so far, sources in Indore police believe that he could have contracted the deadly infection, while being deployed at the venue of anti-CAA protests in Barwali Chowki area of Indore last month. The anti-CAA protests had camped there for around 70 days.
While confirming the police inspector's death at the private hospital, the Indore-DIG HN Chari Mishra said the police inspector died at the SAIMS Hospital at around 3.30 am.
According to informed sources the inspector's lungs were badly damaged due to the deadly viral infection and he had also plunged into acute pneumonia, despite having recently tested negative for the virus after prolonged medical treatment.
He was put on ventilator support at the hospital for the last few days.
Besides, the police inspector, an elderly woman infected by the deadly virus also died at another private hospital in Indore on Saturday night. Also, the samples of a BJP municipal councilor Devkrishna Sankhla who died at the SAIMS Hospital recently too have tested positive for the deadly virus, thus taking the death count due to Coronavirus in Indore to 50 and the state's toll to 71.
A total of 1402 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the state, out of whom 892 are from Indore.