Russian found dead in Odisha, 3rd in fortnight

New Delhi, January 3

Another Russian was found dead in Odisha on Tuesday aboard a ship anchored at Paradip Port in Jagatsinghpur district.

Body found on ship

• Milyakov Sergey was the chief engineer of the merchant vessel in which his body was found around 4.30 am on Tuesday
• The vessel was on its way to Mumbai from Chittagong Port in Bangladesh and had stopped at Paradip Port for fuel

Milyakov Sergey is the third Russian national found dead in the state. His body was found in his ship chamber around 4.30 am.

Sergey was the chief engineer of the merchant vessel, which was on its way to Mumbai from Chittagong Port in Bangladesh. The ship had stopped at Paradip Port for fuel.

The police have so far not stated the cause of the death.

Russians have been in news in Odisha for the past fortnight. Two Russian tourists, including a businessman-legislator said to be critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, were found dead in a hotel in Rayagada town around Christmas.

Pavel Antov (65), the legislator, died after allegedly falling from a hotel’s third floor on December 24. His roommate Vladimir Bidenov (61) had died of cardiac arrest on December 22, according to the postmortem report released by the Odisha Police. The Odisha CID has taken over the case and seized the remains of the Russians who were cremated after receiving consent from their families.

Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov has pushed back at conspiracy theories on the cremation of the two Russians following their unnatural death. Alipov said cremations were customary in Russia, as were burials.

Antov’s daughter Anna Pavlovna Antova also said cremation was a usual custom in Russia and her grandmother was similarly cremated a few years ago. Both Anna and Bidenov’s son had given power of attorney to the Rayagada police to cremate the bodies of their fathers.

Antov, along with three friends, had arrived in India to celebrate his 66th birthday. The postmortem report of Antov has revealed the cause of death as internal injuries, while Bidenov “died of a heart attack”. They were accompanied by an Indian tourist guide, Jitendra Singh.

The western media has painted Antov’s death after allegedly falling from the hotel’s third floor as mysterious considering about eight Russians who were critical of Putin suffered accidental deaths, some of them even falling from windows.

Antov too was briefly critical of Putin whom he held responsible for the deaths of civilians in Ukraine before recanting.

The other two surviving Russians — Natalia Pansasenko (44) and Mikhail Turov (64) —along with the tour guide are being questioned and have been told not to leave Odisha.