A 55-year-old man who returned to his hometown in Dakshina Karnataka district with his family recently, died in a quarantine facility on Thursday in a suspected case of suicide. The deceased, Dayananda Poojary, a native of Moodabidri, had been sent to institutional quarantine after he returned from Mumbai, officials said.
Dakshina Karnataka District Health Officer said that, “Dayananda had been put into a hostel in Moodabidri and he was found dead.” The DHO said that the incident took place even before he had been tested for the coronavirus. Now, officials have taken a swab sample from the patient, and the results would come only on Friday at around 11 am, 24 hours after the sample was taken, the DHO said. “The body has not yet been taken and processed for post-mortem, and we will do so only after the COVID results come in. This is a medico-legal case,” he added.
According to some reports, the fear of having COVID-19 led to the suicide. Mangaluru Commissioner PS Harsha however said that it is not clear what had happened. “Why don’t know why he might have done this, so we are investigating,” he said.
The body is currently being kept at Wenlock hospital, media reports stated.
This is not the first time that a person has been reported to have killed themselves due to the fear of coronavirus. Earlier, the Karnataka government has reported the death of a COVID-19 positive patient ‘due to non-COVID reasons’, who took his own life after being admitted to a hospital on April 27. In another instance, a 46-year-old man who was under home quarantine instructions in Hassan district was found dead at his residence on March 30. The man had returned from Maharashtra and was asked to stay in quarantine.