Rayagada (Odisha): A video of the cremation of Putin critic Pavel Antov in Odisha has surfaced. It is arguably the first video of the cremation of Antov who died after allegedly jumping from the third floor of a hotel in Odisha's Rayagada on December 25. His fellow tourist Vladimir Bidenov died of a heart attack the days before the death of Antov.
The Odisha Police on Thursday announced that it has formed another Crime Branch team comprising of four officers to assist the CID-CB team in the investigation. The team headed by DSP Saroj Kant Mahanto is "entrusted with the responsibility of visiting the spot, examining the witnesses and identifying and collecting evidence from the spot and local Police and taking follow-up action," stated the release.
It further stated that the CID-CB team on the basis of examination has elicited some information about the family members of the deceased persons and is in the process of contacting them to "cross-check the veracity of information" collected during the questioning of Pranasenko Natalia and Turov Mikhail, fellow travelers of the two deceased.
"The CB team is continuing with the examination of the two Russian Nationals namely PANASENKO NATALIA and TUROV MIKHAIL and trying to ascertain the exact sequence of events that took place. Both the Russian tourists are fully cooperating with the inquiry," it added.
According to Odisha Police, the investors have further examined their interpreter Jitendra Singh and tried to ascertain the veracity of the chain of events and crosscheck it with the information collected from Russian nationals.
Meanwhile, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that the Government is aware of the incident. "We are aware of this incident. I understand that the Odisha police are looking into the matter as per our laws. I would stop at this point simply because they are looking into it, they are investigating."
"It is an unfortunate incident of death.... We need to figure out what are the details. It is a police matter so I don't want to jump the gun," he added.
