Palghar Police Claim Indian Navy Sailor Faked Abduction And Burnt Himself Alive For Money; Netizens Question Story

Palghar SP Dattatray Shinde today said that the police is now investigating the “suicide angle” in the case of an Indian Navy sailor found burnt alive in Vevaji forests in Palghar.

A 26-year-old Indian Navy sailor kidnapped from Chennai was brought here, and burnt alive.

The body of Suraj Kumar Dubey, on leave from the unit, was found in Palghar, Maharashtra, with 90 per cent burns on the morning of 5 February. Dubey was posted to the INS Agrani training institute in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore.

At the time, media outlets reported that Dubey’s attackers brutally set him on fire after they believed they would not receive the ransom.

Dubey made a statement to the police before dying against three persons who abducted him.

They had kidnapped the young sailor from outside Chennai airport on 30 January. He was flying back from visiting his family in Jharkhand's Ranchi and his flight landed in Chennai at 9 am.

According to the police, as Dubey exited the airport he was accosted by three unidentified persons and forced into a white SUV at gunpoint. The attackers took away his mobile phone and demanded a ransom demand Rs 10 lakh from his family.

He was held in Chennai for three days.

Notably, the attackers chose to travel with him close to 1,500 km to reach Palghar. Here, they took him to a forest in Gholwad area, where kerosene was poured over him and he was set on fire.

Now, the Palghar SP Dattatray Shinde says that the police suspect that the young sailor “made up his abduction story”.

“We found that Suraj Kumar Dubey (27) had invested money in the share market & took loan which he couldn't repay. To escape from this situation, we suspect he made up his abduction story,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.

“We found CCTV footage of him buying fuel at petrol station. We're probing into suicide angle,” he added.

Social media users lambasted the Palghar police for the “third grade novel story” and accused them of botching up the investigation.

They questioned why an Indian Navy sailor who uses air travel, had been engaged just some time ago would plan a suicide, especially in the horrifying way of being burnt alive. They accused the police of trying to cover up the truth.

One user asked, “How is it that every case from Mumbai (Maharashtra) these days is a suicide?”

People on social media also brought up the Palghar sadhus lynching case and criticised the police for lying about the matter. In the video clips released on social media, the policemen were seen simply handing over the frail sadhus to the mob.

“If the sadhus lynching clips had not come out, they would have concluded that they also committed suicide,” wrote one user.

People demanded more information be released into the public by the police regarding the incident.