The fear of COVID-19 led to a woman keeping herself and her 10-year-old son locked inside their Gurugram house for three years
Mother and her son were rescued after her husband filed a complaint with the Gurugram police claiming that the woman is mentally unstable. He said that his wife had forced him out of the house and then locked herself and the child inside the house
The police had to forcefully evacuate the mother and the son after the woman threatened to kill the child if the authorities undertake any forceful action. Cops had to take assistance from Child Welfare Team and complete the evacuation process
The police found heaps of garbage all around the room where the duo had confined themselves. The two were in bad shape and had to be admitted to a hospital
The woman’s husband had initially filed a complaint which was dismissed after being cited as a family matter and the woman continued to stay locked in creating this bizarre incident
As per reports, the family including the husband had kept themselves confined indoors initially but during the second wave, the woman forced her husband out and locked herself and the child inside a room. The COVID-induced paranoia was such that she refused to open the door for her husband, an engineer by profession, after he returned from his office back in 2021
The woman had developed a fear of her child contracting COVID-19 and dying of it. After failing to persuade his wife to unlock the room, the man started living in a rented accommodation. She was finally rescued along with her son on Feb 22, 2023
At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the government had announced countrywide lockdowns to avoid spread of infection, forcing people to stay inside their homes. There had been multiple reports of worsening mental health as the lockdown continued for many months amid increasing COVID cases