Indian police barricaded parts of one of Asia's biggest slums Friday after two coronavirus deaths, as under-pressure Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to dispel “darkness and uncertainty” with a national light show.

India so far has largely escaped the pandemic with 2,300 infections and 56 deaths, according to official figures, but two fatalities and a third infection in the Dharavi neighbourhood of Mumbai have set alarm bells ringing.

Authorities have set up eight “containment zones” in the area, home to as many as a million people living and working in cramped tin-roofed shanties, flats and small factories — made famous by the 2008 film “Slumdog Millionaire”.