COVID-19: India man uses toilet break as excuse to escape jailers
Convict was being transported to the hospital when he stopped for "long", "short" breaks
Dubai: A 48-year-old life-term prisoner was on his way to a COVID-19 hospital in West Bengal when he escaped after using nature’s call as an excuse to slip away from his jailers.
The man had been languishing behind bars since 2011, when he was convicted for killing his wife.
Taking the opportunity while he was being transported from Rimbick in Darjeeling to a hospital in Triveni, Kalimpong, the man called on his guards to allow him to take a toilet break. Ambulance driver Amit Gurung was quoted by Kalimpongonlinenews and Telegraph India as saying that he needed to go for “short” and “long” i.e. to urinate and defecate.
They stopped, and he used the “two-three minutes” he had alone to escape.
Rahul Pandey, Darjeeling DSP (town), was quoted as telling Telegraph India that efforts were on to nab Bhim Rai.
The police were reported by local media as carrying on a search in the neighbouring jungle, calling out by loudspeaker, warning Rai that there were leopards and bears in the forest.
This led to some hilarity on social media, with one tweep responding to the incident with the comment: “Hope the wild animals comprehend the announcement from the loudspeaker.”
And another tweet remarked :” The virus definitely pushed humans closer to nature. Quite literally”