Delhi Police officer returns to Covid duty hours after losing brother-in-law to virus

Hours after losing a family member to Covid-19, Lakshay Pandey, a young police officer, chose to return to his duty to save lives amid a crisis in the national capital.

The officer, who is in-charge of setting up the Radha Soami Satsang Beas Covid care facility in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur, lost his brother-in-law early on Saturday but returned to work in the afternoon. He led his team to check the ongoing preparations at the facility, which is required to be readied on a fast-track basis given the rapidly increasing cases in the city.

Pandey, a 2018 batch DANIPS officer, is currently working as ACP (Mehrauli sub-division) during his under-trainee period. “My brother-in-law was in the hotel industry and came to India last month from Dubai. Everything was fine, but suddenly he started complaining of uneasiness. We did an RT-PCR test, but the result came back negative. He had severe breathing issues following which we admitted him to the GTB hospital,” he said.

Pandey’s brother-in-law had all the symptoms of Covid-19 and during the treatment, family members were first asked to arrange for plasma and Remdesivir.

“After running from pillar to post, we arranged everything for him and he was shifted to the ICU. He had a cardiac arrest late on Friday. We were informed about the death at around 2.30 am when I rushed to the hospital to do all formalities and we received his body on Saturday morning,” he added.

After receiving the body from the hospital, they took him to Ghazipur where there was a long queue. “We waited for our number, but I was also getting phone calls from my office regarding the preparation of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas Covid care facility and updates regarding enforcement of a curfew in our area. So, I left my family and rushed to the office. It was a tough time for me and my family, but I cannot compromise with my duty,” he said while leaving for patrolling in his area.