A 28-yeear-old married man from India recently made international news headlines for lying to his family about getting infected with the new coronavirus as an excuse to run away with his lover.

On July 24, Manish Mishra called his wife to say that he had tested positive for Covid-19 and that he didn’t want to live anymore. He then proceeded to shut off his phone, which caused his family to panic. His wife called her brother for help after receiving the bizarre call, and he advised her to file a missing persons report with the Navi Mumbai police. The investigation that followed showed that the 28-year-old supervisor had actually used the dreaded illness as a pretext to leave his family and elope with his mistress.

Photo: Mika Baumeister/Unsplash

“My coronavirus test report has come out to be positive, I can’t live anymore,” a weeping Manish reportedly told his wife during his last phone call, but police checked all the labs near his last known location, and none had tested anyone by the name Manish Mishra. They then checked in with his employer, a logistics company, and learned that he had recently been fired because of his involvement in a fraud attempt. Finally, after talking to some of his friends, and learned that he had been having an affair.

“We sent a team to his last known location, where we got his motorcycle and key, his backpack that he carried to work, and his helmet,” a police officer told Indian Express. “We even checked the Vashi creek with the help of local fishermen, but could not find his body. We were certain that he was alive and so we kept looking.”

“Based on the last cell phone location in Airoli, we scanned all CCTV camera footage from the area and found him getting into a car,” Sanjeev Dhumal, senior inspector of Vashi police, said. A team tracked its owner to Ratnagiri. Meanwhile, we were also constantly questioning his friends and family. We came to know that he was having an extramarital affair. With the help of information provided by friends, we tracked him in Bhawarkua, Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

Manish and his family

“Mishra was fired from work as he had indulged in a financial fraud recently. He had been having an affair for a couple of years and wanted to get rid of his wife and daughter. Which is why he plotted his illness and suicide,” Dhumal added.

Police finally tracked down Mishra to the city of Indore, where he was reportedly living with his lover, hoping that his family had written him off as dead. On September 15, he was picked up and taken back to Navi Mumbai, where he was reunited with his family….

I’d hate to be in this guy’s shoes, as he tries to explain that last phone call and the past two months.