Was he sent here as an undercover agent on the trail of a drug operation, or was he just a cop out on a regular Goa holiday?

The media, obsessed with incidents related to foreign tourists since the Scarlett Keeling case, has given a new spin to the Russian’s death when the case was hardly suspicious, say the Goa police.

Russian authorities on the other hand, who have asked the Goa police for details of the investigations into Kuzmin’s death, have been evasive, neither confirming nor denying if he was deputed here on work.

Inspector General of Police Kishan Kumar told Deccan Herald that Kuzmin, 35, had arrived in Goa from Moscow with a friend on November 9 last. There was nothing on record to show that he was a police or enforcement officer.

On December 8, Kuzmin went out to dinner with a Russian woman friend in Calangute. He spent the night at the woman’s house in Mandrem. Late next morning he was found dead in his sleep.

No injuries

“The post-mortem inquest showed there were no injuries on his body,” Kumar said, but since the exact cause of death had not been established the viscera were sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Hyderabad. The Goa police are still to get the results of the forensic tests. Lawyer Vikram Verma, retained by the Russian Consulate in Mumbai, says Kuzmin was a Russian law enforcement officer.

“Since there is lack of clarity on the cause of death, the Russian Ministry of Interior has asked for details of the police inquiry. All we’ve been told is that he went for a party, came back and died,” says Verma.