Many teachers pressed into Indian poll duty became virus victims, families say

Akhilesh Agarwal, 49, husband of Suman Lata, 50, a teacher who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) after she attended her local election duty in April, sits next to a picture of his wife inside their house in the town of Vrindavan in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, May 25, 2021. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

MATHURA, India (Reuters) - Suman Lata’s family begged her to refuse a summons to monitor elections in Uttar Pradesh state last month but, worried about losing her job, the 49-year-old mother of three went anyway, just as India’s second coronavirus wave hit a peak.

Two weeks later, she was dead, one of more than 1,600 teachers who died from COVID-19 in the weeks after working at the polls, according to the families of eight victims and mortality data supplied by a teachers’ union.