Bengaluru nursing student, family attacked by neighbours over COVID-19 fears

While neither the 20-year-old nursing student nor her family currently has COVID-19, one of the alleged attackers tested positive for coronavirus and blamed them.
Representational image of woman being attacked
Representational image of woman being attacked
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Police in Bengaluru has booked three persons for assaulting and verbally abusing a 20-year-old nursing student and her father in Indiranagar on May 14. According to reports, Priyadarshini, the nursing student and a resident of Lakshmipuram, in Indiranagar, in her complaint to the police said that they were targeted by their neighbours for allegedly spreading the novel coronavirus, even though her mother had contracted the COVID-19 infection late last year.

Based on her complaint, police have registered a case of assault and criminal intimidation against Prabhu, his brother Arjun and their cousin Ram according to The Times of India.

The New Indian Express quoted a part of her complaint, where it said that at around 5 pm on Friday, the three accused were abusing her family with unparliamentary language. When her father objected to this, he was hit by the men and they even threatened to knife him. This is when Priyadarshani went to intervene and she was allegedly attacked by Ram with a knife. They left only after threatening them once again.

Speaking with TNM, Indiranagar Police said that the three assailants were hurling abuses to which the father objected and that escalated into a fight. “We have filed an FIR, and the assailants have not been arrested since one of them has COVID-19,” an official in the station told TNM.

This altercation on Friday took place amid a statewide lockdown in the state, which is on till May 24. The state is showing initial signs of a drop in cases for the first time in three months. With 36,475 patients discharged, recoveries outnumbered the 31,531 new COVID-19 cases, across Karnataka, on May 16.

In Bengaluru, 13,612 patients were discharged in a day, and recoveries outnumbered the 8,344 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday.

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