Indian politician questions cremation of Russian men who died in Odisha hotel: 'Burnt bodies tell no tales'

Manish Tewari, a parliamentarian from the Indian National Congress, one of the country's major opposition parties, on Thursday (29) questioned the cremation of the two Russian nationals who mysteriously died in a hotel in the eastern Indian state of Odisha within a span of two days last week.

Wondering why the bodies of the two men, who were in India as tourists, were cremated and not buried as per Christian tradition, the senior politician wrote on Twitter, “Hercule Poirot says burnt bodies tell no tales.”

He also posted a CNN article titled 'At least eight Russian businessmen have died in apparent suicide or accidents in just six months'.

Poirot is a fictional detective created by British writer Agatha Christie.

On December 22, Vladimir Bidenov was found dead in his hotel room. Two days later, Pavel Antov, a Russian lawmaker and a multi-millionaire businessman and Bidenov's fellow traveller and hotel roommate, allegedly died after falling from the hotel's third floor.

The incidents made headlines all over particularly over the death of Antov, who was a critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine in February this year.

Tewari, 57, had also posted a video on Twitter earlier highlighting the mysterious circumstances under which the two Russian men were found dead.

“A Russian Oligarch ..a war Critic..an offbeat hotel..a colleague who dies under mysterious circumstances...a convenient window..another death..a cremation in India of two Christians rather than a burial...the bodies not repatriated to their native countries. If this not unnatural death then I did not go to law school,” Tewari, a lawyer who served as a minister in the government of Manmohan Singh, said in a video statement.