DW BUREAU / Ambala A murder accused who had tested positive for COVID-19 escaped from the isolation ward of a hospital in Haryana's Ambala, police said on Monday. The accused, Lucky Kumar, a resident of Rohtak, escaped from Mission Hospital on Sunday by breaking the grille of a window in the ward, they said. Kumar was arrested from Panchkula district on August 7, Baldevnagar police station SHO Satya Narayan told reporters. He was produced before a court which sent him to judicial custody to Ambala Central Jail, he said. The accused was tested for COVID-19 in jail and his report came back positive. Later, the jail authorities got him admitted to the hospital, the police said. They said he was kept in a separate ward along with another jail inmate who had also tested positive for the disease. A police team was also deployed there to keep a watch on the accused.On Sunday, hospital authorities informed the police that Kumar was missing from his bed. It was found that he had escaped from the ward by breaking the grille of the window in the ward, they added. A case has been registered against the accused. There is no clue about his whereabouts so far, the police said. A single-day spike of 61,408 COVID-19 cases took India's virus caseload past the 31-lakh mark on Monday, a day after it crossed 30 lakh, while recoveries surged to 23,38,035 pushing the recovery rate to over 75 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data. India's COVID-19 caseload mounted to 31,06,348, while the death toll climbed to 57,542 with 836 fatalities being reported in a span of 24-hours, the data updated at 8 am showed. The COVID-19 case fatality rate has declined to 1.85 per cent, while the recovery rate has risen to 75.27 per cent. There are 7,10,771 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 22.88 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7. (editor@dailyworld.in)