The Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan has been discharged from hospital. This comes after spending three weeks admitted with coronavirus symptoms after testing positive for the disease. 

“I am back home. I will have to be in solitary quarantine in my room,” Bachchan wrote on Instagram, saying he had tested negative. 

He thanked his family, fans “and the excellent care and nursing” at the hospital, saying they “made it possible for me to see this day”.

Bachchan’s actor-son, Abishek who was admitted with him, remains in the hospital. His daughter-in-law, Aishwarya Rai, and granddaughter, Aarandhya were discharged last week. 

Bachchan’s discharge coincides with news that Home Minister Amit Shah said he had tested positive for the virus. 

Bachchan, 77, is a Bollywood veteran, having worked in the film industry for more than half a century. 

He enjoys a large fanbase who glorify him as a god-like deity. 

Hundreds of fans flocked to the Amitabh Bachchan Temple which was built by fans in 2001 and features a true to life size statue of the glorified celebrity in Kolkata on Sunday. 

“Amitabh is our ’guru’. He is more than god to us,” the secretary of the Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association, Sanjoy Patodiya told Associated Foreign Press on Sunday.

“His fans are spending sleepless nights praying that their god gets well soon.”

India has suffered more than 1.8 million positive cases, coming in at the third-highest in the world, behind the United States and Brazil. At least 38,000 people have died in India.