89 THREE-YEAR LOCKDOWN

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MOTHER QUARANTINES HERSELF AND SON AT HOME FOR THREE YEARS

A young Indian mother locked herself up with her child in an apartment for three years because she was convinced that the boy would die of Covid-19 as soon as he set foot outside the home.

In what can only be described as an extreme case of Covid paranoia, a 36-year-old woman from Gurugram, India, cut herself and her son off from the outside world when the pandemic started. The woman, shocked by the wave of coronavirus deaths that swept India in 2020, believed that cutting off all contact with the outside world was the only way to save her son, who was seven years old at the time.

At first, the woman’s husband was also forced to stay indoors with them at all times, but when he started going out to work after lockdown restrictions ended, he was forbidden to come back. Sick of being cut off from his family for years, he finally sought help from the police.

Sujan Majhi, an engineer, told police that his wife had been locked up in the family apartment for three years and that he had had to rent himself another place to live after being forbidden from entering their home. The man had been paying all their bills, including the additional rent for his apartment, and leaving groceries outside his wife’s door for many months, hoping that everything would get back to normal soon. Eventually, however, he decided that he needed outside help.

When police first heard Sujan’s story, they could not believe it, so they called his wife, Munmun, who confirmed the man’s story, adding that her now 10-year-old son was “absolutely healthy.”

The officer asked the mother if she could also confirm the boy’s well-being via video call, and that is when the police realized the gravity of the situation. Not only was the home a complete mess, with mountains of trash everywhere, but the boy looked unkempt, with long hair that reached past his shoulders.

“His mother was still in a panic over Covid. She had no intention of coming out. She kept saying, ‘I will not let my son step out because he will die immediately,’” the officer in charge of the case told journalists.

“I kept talking to her, kept asking her if she needed any help. I think she started trusting me. So, when I invited her to the police station, she came, but the child was not with her. We finally managed to convince her to let us help her. She was taken to a hospital, and we then went to the flat to rescue the child.”

When they entered the apartment, the policemen were in shock. The trash had not been taken out in three years, so there were piles of garbage everywhere. A layer of thick dirt covered every surface, and the walls were covered with writing and drawings, likely by the boy, who had not interacted with anyone but his mother during the long lockdown.

Both the mother and her 10-year-old son have both been admitted to the hospital psychiatric ward for treatment, but husband Sujan is hopeful that their lives will be back on track soon.