Chennai: The city police on Tuesday arrested a woman contract worker at a government hospital here in connection with the alleged murder of a COVID-19 patient.
The 41-year-old patient from West Tambaram had mysteriously disappeared from her ward after she was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) here with coronavirus symptoms on May 23. Upon finding her missing from the COVID ward, her husband Mouli informed the authorities and filed a missing complaint with the police, a senior official said.
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"A decomposed body was found on the eighth floor of the RGGGH on June 8 and it was later identified to be that of the patient Sunitha, aged 41," the senior police official said. Enquiries by the police revealed that the patient was last seen wheeled away from the third floor by a woman contract worker at the hospital.
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"The contract worker Rathi Devi, 40, of Thiruvottiyur, had taken the patient under the pretext to scan but allegedly strangled her to death. The body was dumped near the staircase. Rathi Devi was arrested today," the police official said. The Flower Bazaar police recovered a mobile phone said to belong to the deceased woman from Rathi Devi.
(PTI)
