City Univs Lose Leading Lights To Covid-19, DU The Worst Hit

35 Professors Of Delhi University, 2 From JNU And 5 From Jamia Fail To Beat Virus

- Shradha Chettri & Mohammad Ibrar

New Delhi: Former Delhi University dean of examinations Vinay Gupta lost his struggle against Covid-19. Almost immediately, his father too succumbed to the infection. In Jawaharlal Nehru University, former dean of admissions and professor of biotechnology Deepak Gaur was claimed by the dreaded infection too. Covid has taken the lives of 35 teachers in DU, two in JNU and five in Jamia Millia Islamia, while many are still recovering from the infection.

DU lost a few other stalwarts besides Gupta. Veena Kukreja, head of the political science department, lost her battle against the coronavirus despite having become well enough to have been shifted out of the ICU. Kukreja, 65, was in hospital from April 27 to May 13, according to fellow teacher Bipin Tewari, she couldn’t survive the infection. “We don’t know what happened, that too all of a sudden,” said Tewari. Joint registrar Sudhir Sharma also lost his life to Covid.

The lives of several teachers in DU constituent colleges were claimed by Covid too. At Aryabhatta College, Ravi Bhushan, ad-hoc teacher in the psychology department, and at Deshbandhu College, Chandra Shekhar, teacher in the mathematics department, could not fight back the infection. Manoj Sinha, principal of Aryabhatta, said, “Bhushan’s wife is also an ad-hoc teacher at Kamala Nehru College. We are also working out something to help the family.” Unable to get a hospital bed in Delhi, Bhushan had been taken to AIIMS, Jhajjar.