The mysterious death of the richest Russian lawmaker and businessman Pavel Antov which is under investigation by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) wing of the Odisha Police’s Crime Branch on Thursday got dragged into a fresh controversy as information flowed that his body was hurriedly consigned to flames at Rayagada. Many questioned as to why the body was not laid to rest in a grave as per Christian funeral practice and cremated quietly in the evening.
Antov, said to be a practising Christian, died after allegedly falling from Hotel Sai International's third floor in Rayagada on December 24 night. His death came just two days after his friend Vladimir Videnov was found dead in his room in the same hotel on December 22 reportedly due to a heart attack.
Amid the rising controversy over the death of Antov, whose fortunes is said to be worth over Rs 1,000 crore, two senior officers of the Central Intelligence Bureau (IB) arrived in Rayagada on Thursday and began a probe into the case.
Antov, a bitter critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had raised strong objections to the latter’s war against Ukraine.
The alleged hasty cremation of Antov’s body was performed in the presence of the magistrate-cum-tehsildar and senior police officials of Rayagada, reports said.
Questions are raised in different circles if the Rayagada district administration had the permission of Antov’s family to cremate his body as per Hindu rituals or they were under any kind of pressure.
“Russian Tycoon..War Critic..Off beat hotel..Convenient window..Fall…Death..Colleague died 2 days earlier..same hotel ….Both cremated in India..being Christians not buried..Bodies not sent home. IF THIS IS NOT UNNATURAL THEN I DID NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL,” (sic) tweeted senior Congress leader Manish Tewari.
What has sparked the controversy is that the Rayagada administration did not even preserve Antov’s ‘viscera’ for further investigation. “While the viscera of Videnov has been preserved, how could the officials not preserve the viscera of Antov,” questioned many intellectuals, including former Odisha Police Director General Sanjeev Marik.
To further add to the mystery, the body was cremated at around 7 pm at the Siriguda crematorium. The postmortem had been carried out at around 4 pm.
Antov along with his friends had landed in Odisha and visited Kandhamal district before travelling to Rayagada, where they stayed at the hotel. However, mysteriously, one of them, Videnov, 62, was found dead in his hotel room. The post-mortem report confirmed heart attack to be the reason for his death while reports surfaced that there were a large number of liquor bottles near his body and he must have died due to excess drinking.
While it was claimed that Antov was found dead on December 24 night in a pool of blood after falling off his room terrace, some locals said they did not see any stains of blood on the surface. Jitendra Singh, the Indian guide of the Russian tourists hailing from Delhi, claimed Antov was very close to Videnov and might have jumped to death after being unable to bear the trauma caused by the latter's death.
Now, there are questions as to why Antov had come to Odisha, the mysterious circumstances of his death and the link between Russia and Odisha.
The Crime Branch is also looking into other angles in the mysterious deaths.
The Odisha Police has maintained that Antov’s last rites were performed following the directions of the Russian Embassy in India.