A member of Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party, Devpalik Gupta, who went missing from a moving train while travelling from Patna, was found dead in a forest in Jharkhand. Gupta was part of the party’s communications team. The 31-year-old went missing while travelling on the Jan Shatabdi Express on Monday. He was on way to Patna from Ranchi with two friends. His body, which was located today near a railway track close to Jarwadih village on the Ranchi-Muri line, has been identified by his brother.
Angara police station officer-in-charge Gautam Kumar Rajwar said preliminary investigation suggests that Gupta fell off the moving train accidentally and died.
“The body will be sent to the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranchi for postmortem. A case of unnatural death will be registered based on statements from the deceased’s family,” Rajwar was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India.
Gautam Kumar, Gupta’s friend and colleague, told PTI that they boarded the train at the Ranchi railway station. Ten minutes after it departed — around 2:25 pm – Gupta told them he was going to the pantry car to get something to eat, but he did not return, reported PTI.
“Thereafter, we left our berth and went to the pantry car next to our coach, but we did not find him. Then we checked every coach, but he was nowhere on the train,” he said. When the train stopped at Muri Junction, they lodged a complaint with the Government Railway Police, prompting a search.
The Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) condoled Gupta’s death, describing it as “heart-wrenching”.
“Devpalik Gupta had been leading JSP’s social media team for the last four years. He was extremely talented and bore a simple demeanour. Gupta’s demise is heart-wrenching and an irreparable loss for us. This is an extremely painful moment for the Jan Suraaj family. We are all aggrieved,” it said.
Gupta led the Jan Suraaj Party’s social media campaign ahead of its victory in the Bankipur assembly bypoll earlier this year. The victory of Prashant Kishor gave the party its lone MLA in the Bihar assembly.
He was an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi.
In a message, the IIMC said, “Team IIMCAA deeply mourns the tragic loss of our alumnus Mr. Devpalik Gupta (HJ, Delhi | 2018-19 Batch) under mysterious circumstances in Jharkhand… It prays for strength to the family and friends to bear the irreparable loss. We urge Jharkhand Police to probe this incident thoroughly and make the investigation report public at the earliest”.
