CID team visits Rayagada hotel where 2 Russian nationals died

Bhubaneswar, Dec 30 (PTI) A team of the CID of Odisha Police accompanied by forensic experts on Friday visited the hotel in Odisha’s Rayagada district where two Russian nationals died under mysterious circumstances, an official said.

The CID is probing the mysterious death of Russian nationals – Vladimir Bidenov (61) and Pavel Antov (65), a lawmaker in that country. While Bidenov’s body was found in the hotel room at Rayagada on December 22, Antov died on December 24 after a fall from the third floor of the hotel building.

Bidenov’s post-mortem said that he died due to heart attack after consuming liquor while Antov’s death was attributed to “accidental” fall from a height.

The CID visited the hotel at Rayagada along with SFSL (state forensic science laboratory) team and inspected the place where the body of Antov was found lying. The team inspected the entire area thoroughly with the assistance of scientific team and photo bureau, the official said.

The team detailed the spot map indicating all relevant references of the spot, the official said, adding that one pair of slippers said to be of deceased Antov, was collected from the spot.

The investigating team assisted by the scientific team also searched for evidence in the hotel room where Bidenov and Antov were staying on December 21. It also collected all the evidence including slippers, latent fingerprints from glass and other surfaces, the official said, adding that the sleuths also searched thoroughly for evidence in another room where Antov was stayed alone from December 22 night after death of Bidenov.

The team collected drinking glass and water bottles from Antov’s room. “The chance fingerprint found on drinking glass where properly gathered and photographed for further action,” an agency statement said.

The CID team also talked to police officers of Rayagada Police Station where the cases were registered in connection with the deaths of two Russian nationals. The local police was investigating into the matter before the CID took up the probe.

Meanwhile, two other Russian nationals and fellow travellers of Antov and Bidenov, identified as Pansasenko Natalia (44) and Turov Mikhail (64), were on Friday further examined at the CID headquarters at Cuttack. “Their statements were video recorded through an interpreter,” an official said.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov in a twitter post said that there was no wrong done in performing the last rites of the deceased duo. The controversy came to light after some people raised question on cremation of the two Russian Christians instead of being buried.

Alipov has also said that he is happy with the investigation launched by the Indian police, clarifying as per the Russian traditions, a body can be buried or consigned to flames.