Burnt bodies tell no tales: Congress MP on cremation of Russian men who died in Odisha

Manish Tewari questioned why the Russians, who were Christians, were cremated and not buried (File)

By India Today Web Desk: “Burnt bodies tell no tales,” tweeted Congress leader Manish Tewari, days after the bodies of two Russians, who were found dead in Odisha under mysterious circumstances, were cremated here. One of them, according to the police, had died of a stroke and was cremated.

“Two Christians cremated not buried! Why? Hercule Poirot says burnt bodies tell no tales,” Tewari tweeted.

On Wednesday, Tewari had posted a video on Twitter and wrote: “Russian Oligarch... War Critic… Offbeat hotel... Convenient window... Fall… Death… Colleague died 2 days earlier... same hotel… Both cremated in India... being Christians not buried... Bodies not sent home to Russia. If this is not unnatural, then I did not go to law school.”

Tewari tagged Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in his tweet.

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Mystery surrounds the deaths of the two Russian men at a hotel in Odisha's Rayagada within a span of a few days under different circumstances. The state’s top cop has ordered a CID probe, while the Russian embassy said that the police have found "no criminal aspect".

"The Consulate General of Russia in Kolkata is following the case in touch with local authorities. According to information available to the police, no criminal aspect is seen," Russia Today quoted the embassy as saying.

Among the dead was Pavel Antov, a lawmaker from Russia’s Vladimir region, about 200 km from Moscow. According to reports in a section of the media, Antov, 65, was the founder of the Vladimir Meat Processing Plant and ranked on the rich list of lawmakers in Russia.

He was found lying in a pool of blood outside the hotel on December 24.

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Vladimir Bidenov, Antov's co-traveller, was found dead at the same hotel on December 22. He was found lying unconscious in his room on the first floor of the hotel with a few empty wine bottles next to him, the police said.

The two were a part of a four-member group of Russian tourists, who, along with their guide Jitendra Singh, had checked into the hotel on December 21.

NOT A FIRST

Earlier in April this year, two Russian oligarchs were found dead along with their families within a span of 24 hours, in a string of deaths among Russia’s super rich since the beginning of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The bullet-riddled bodies of banking magnate Vladislav Avayev and his wife and daughter were discovered in the Russian capital of Moscow. Less than a day later, gas executive Sergei Protosenya was found hanged in Spain with his wife and daughter stabbed to death.

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The gory deaths of Protosenya and Avayev were not the first.

On February 25, a day after Russia launched its “special military operation in Ukraine”, top Gazprom executive Alexander Tyulyakov was found hanging in a cottage near St Petersburg. The police recovered a note next to his body, which led them to believe that Tyulyakov had died by suicide.

Ukrainian-born Russian tycoon Mikhail Watford, who made his wealth in oil and gas, was found dead in his home in Surrey in Britain on February 28. His body was found in a noose in the garage of his home by his gardener.

On March 24, Russian media reported the deaths of billionaire Vasily Melnikov, his wife and two sons in their luxury apartment in Nizhny Novgorod. They had all died from stab wounds and the knives used in the murders were found at the crime scene.

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