11 accused in Palghar mob lynching case contract coronavirus

Those accused who tested positive for coronavirus were shifted to local hospitals and their contacts are being traced.

Palghar: 11 of the accused in the Palghar lynching case in Maharashtra have tested positive for coronavirus, the police said on Tuesday.

A total of 156 persons were arrested after two monks on the way to Surat from Mumbai in a car were beaten to death along with their driver on April 16 by a mob at Gadchinchale village in the district on suspicion that they were thieves.

All the accused have been remanded to judicial custody but lodged in various police lockups as work is going on at Palghar jail, said an official of the Palghar Police Station.

17 accused who were kept at a police lockup at Wada were tested recently and 11 turned out to have contracted the coronavirus while the results of six others were yet to be received, he said.

Those who tested positive were shifted to local hospitals and their contacts are being traced, he said.

Earlier, at least two of the arrested accused in the case had tested positive for the virus.