“I can be murdered,” wrote Journo Tarun in a WhatsApp group who jumped to death at AIIMS

By Purvi Jain

A journalist who was undergoing treatment of COVID-19 committed suicide on Monday afternoon. He jumped from the fourth floor of AIIMS.

The 37-year-old, Tarun Sisodia, who was working with Dainik Bhaskar, took this drastic step in the afternoon around 2 pm. He was admitted to AIIMS on June 24 and was reported to be under depression after he was being tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

A statement from AIIMS said that “at around 1.55 pm, Sisodia ran out. Hospital attendants ran after him and tried to stop him. Sisodia ran to the fourth floor where he broke a windowpane and jumped out. He was immediately moved to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Trauma Care Centre. He was intubated and resuscitation was tried but unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries at 3.55 pm.”

As per the statement, he was making a significant recovery from COVID-19 symptoms. He was even more stable on the room air on Monday and so was shifted to the general ward from the ICU.

As per his message on a Whatsapp group of journalists, he had this idea and feared that he can be murdered. “Not well… murder ho sakta hai,” he had written which makes this case suspicious of the fact that was this really a suicide?

He underwent a surgery for frontal lobe meningioma (a type of brain tumor) at G B pant hospital in March. When he got admitted to AIIMS, statement said, the patient was suffering from “bouts of disorientation for which he was seen by a neurologist and psychiatrist and put on medication. The family members were regularly counseled regarding his condition.”