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.

"She asked if she could be excused but the officers said 'if you are not sick, you have to do your duty',” said Lata’s 25-year-old son, Vaibhav Agarwal, sitting in front of her photo, garlanded with flowers at the family’s home in Mathura town, southeast of the capital, New Delhi.

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