A final-year MBBS student from Varanasi is suspected to have drowned himself in the Ganga under the influence of tantriks to attain “moksha”, or release from the cycle of rebirth.

Navneet Parashar, student of Banaras Hindu University’s Institute of Medical Sciences, had been talking about seeking moksha through jal samadhi (immersion in a watery grave), Ashwini Kumar Chaturvedi, a police inspector in Varanasi, told reporters.

Four days after the Bihar native disappeared, his body was seen floating in the river on Saturday near Kolhua Ghat at Vindhyachal in Mirzapur district, 65km east of Varanasi. “Our primary investigations suggest that Navneet had recently come under the influence of some tantriks of Varanasi and Vindhyachal,” Sanjay Singh, Mirzapur circle officer, told reporters in Vindhyachal on Monday.

Singh said Navneet, a boarder of the Dhanvantari Hostel at BHU, had arrived in Vindhyachal on his motorcycle on June 9.

He took a bath in the Ganga, prayed at the Vindhyavasini Devi temple with the help of a panda (priest), gave him his motorcycle keys saying he would be back soon, and disappeared down Chamunda Street, the officer said.

That was the last anyone saw him alive, apparently.

“Navneet’s friends, relatives and acquaintances said he had been talking about seeking moksha through jal Samadhi in recent months,” Chaturvedi, the Varanasi inspector, said.

“He stopped talking to his friends a few days ago. Security-camera footage from Vindhyachal shows Navneet walking towards a cave in an area where several tantriks have been camping. We are questioning them.”

Navneet, who hailed from Gopalganj district in Bihar, had enrolled in the medical college in 2015.

A group of Navneet’s classmates had travelled to Vindhyachal on Saturday after his body was fished out of the Ganga, one of them told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity, “People there told us Navneet had spoken to a few pandas about human sacrifice and its importance,” he said. “I’m sure that some tantriks of Varanasi and Vindhyachal have used Navneet for their sadhana (spiritual exercises).”

Tantrik rituals are said to include human sacrifices.

“Navneet had been giving away money to whoever asked for help. Recently, he gifted his only mobile phone to someone,” the classmate added.

A source in the police department in Lucknow referred to past reports about the tantriks of Varanasi, Vindhyachal and Mathura handing dried datura (thorn apple) powder to people seeking moksha.

Datura is a poisonous flowering plant eating any part of which can cause delirium, hallucinations and even death.

“When the devotees behave strangely under the influence of the datura, the tantriks claim they are attaining moksha,” the source said.

“Those who survive begin believing they have attained emancipation from material life. We need to investigate Navneet’s death in the light of these reports.”