"He returned from quarantine and kept crying. I had not seen him cry ever. He kept saying there was a conspiracy against him and that he was falsely implicated. He was in another room all day. I went to him and kept asking him if he was fine, but he did not tell me anything," Usha, the mother of 37-year-old Mohammad Dilshad, who took his life by first slashing his wrists and then hanging himself to death in his home on 5 April, spoke to The Quint from Bangarh village in Himachal's Una district.

The villagers of Bangarh had begun to grow suspicious of Dilshad. They thought that he contracted COVID-19 and would end up infecting others in the village. They had seen him give two other Muslims – said to be from the Tablighi Jamaat meet in Delhi's Nizamuddin – a lift on his scooter across their village in the end of March. They called the police on him after repeatedly telling him his actions were uncalled for. Dilshad, though upset by the constant taunts, admitted himself in the hospital as per the wishes of villagers. Three days later the reports came negative and the very next day he ended his life.