Devpalik Gupta, that 31-year-old who handled all the digital and social media stuff for Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party, has been found dead. His body was recovered near the railway tracks in Jarwadih outside Ranchi on Tuesday afternoon. Roughly 24 hours after he went missing from the train.
He was on the Ranchi-Patna Janshatabdi Express on Monday afternoon with a couple of colleagues. About ten minutes after the train left, he told his friend Gautam that he was going to the pantry car. That was it. He never came back. When they reached Muri Junction and he still wasn’t there, Gautam went straight to the railway police and filed a complaint. Phone was switched off the whole time. They searched through the night and into the next day. Finally found him in the bushes near the tracks under Angara police station area.
Police are saying right now it looks like he might have fallen from the moving train by accident. The Angara station officer, Gautam Kumar Rajwar, told people that the early check points to an accidental fall and maybe a head injury. Body has gone to RIMS in Ranchi for post-mortem. They’ll register an unnatural death case once the family gives their statement.
Devpalik was from Kushinagar in UP. Studied at IIMC Delhi. He’d been with Prashant Kishor for four years, right from the Jan Suraaj campaign days in 2022. After Kishor jumped into politics properly, Devpalik was the one running the official social media handles and the digital campaigns. Party people say he did solid work during the Bankipur bypoll earlier this year. Quiet type, simple, just focused on the work.
The party put out a statement saying it’s heart-wrenching and an irreparable loss. Kumar Saurabh Singh, the national spokesperson, said the FIR was registered at 9 pm on Monday itself. Everyone in the team is pretty shaken up. One day the guy is travelling with colleagues for work, next day this news.
Cops are still trying to figure out exactly what happened after he left his seat. For now they’re going with the accidental fall theory. No one’s shouting conspiracy yet, but the post-mortem and further inquiry will settle it. For his family back home and the people who worked with him every day, it’s been a rough couple of days.
Just one of those sudden, ugly things. Hope the family gets whatever support they need and the inquiry brings some clear answers soon.
Sources: India Today, PTI via Rediff and India TV, The Statesman, News18, Economic Times reports from 27-28 October 2026.
@Rohit Manral
