In a shocking development, the Chennai police had on Tuesday arrested a woman sanitary worker in connection to the murder of a COVID-19 patient at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in the city. The accused has confessed the crime post which the police had remanded under in judicial custody for further investigations. 

According to reports, Sunita, a native of Tambaram, was admitted to the government hospital on May 21 after she tested positive for the COVID-19 viral infection. On May 23, two days after getting admitted to the hospital, Sunita had gone missing which had shocked her husband Mowli and family members. She was nowhere to be found and a fortnight later, Sunita's decomposed body was found on June 8 on the eighth floor of the hospital. 

After confirming that it was Sunita, her body was sent for an autopsy. After finding that his wife has died, Sunita's husband Mowli has filed a complaint with the police, and based on his complaint, the police had filed a case under Section 174 - suspicious death of Criminal Procedure Code. The police had initially denied any foul play but the officials went perplexed on how Sunita was moved to the eighth floor of the hospital. 

They were further shocked by the revelations by the autopsy report. The reports say that the post-mortem report had said that the victim had strangulation marks on her neck. Being suspected that she could have been murdered, the police had tightened the investigation to ascertain the cause of her death. The police had then tracked and located the suspect using the victim's missing mobile phone.

After locating the suspect, the police had arrested 40-year-old Rathi Devi of Tiruvottiyur. Devi was a contract sanitary worker at the Rajiv Gandhi Hospital. The police had questioned her in her connection to the crime and during the investigation, Devi had confessed that she had committed the crime of murdering Sunita. 

Devi said that she had taken the victim in a wheelchair, amid her treatment, to the eighth floor of the hospital under the guise of taking a scan. After reaching the eighth floor, Devi had allegedly strangled her to death. She then usurped Rs 9,500 in cash from the victim along with abducting her mobile phone. After robbing the cash, she dumped the body on the eighth floor and fled the spot. As Devi has confessed the crime, she has been taken into judicial custody for further investigation.