New Delhi: The son of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Madhya Pradesh allegedly fabricated his own death to avoid paying off debt amounting to Rs. 1.40 crore, the state police have said.According to the police, Vishal Soni, who is the son of Rajgarh BJP leader Mahesh Soni, also tried to stage a fake kidnapping, reported Times of India.The sequence of events started on Sept 5, when police received information about a car sinking in the Kalisindh river.After divers retrieved the vehicle, the car, which was identified as belonging to Vishal Soni was found to be empty, leading to a large-scale rescue mission being conducted.For two weeks, three separate teams scoured the river covering a 20-km stretch, after allegations of negligence by Vishal’s father.Officials said that when no sign of Vishal emerged after eight days, the police got suspicious and obtained Vishal’s mobile call detail records, which revealed his location in Maharashtra.Thereafter the Madhya Pradesh police and Maharashtra police apprehended Vishal in the Fardapur police station area of Sambhaji Nagar district.After he was interrogated by the police, Vishal confessed to owning six trucks and two public vehicles but being overwhelmed by debts exceeding Rs 1.40 crore.“I was told that if I got a death certificate, the bank loans would be waived,” he reportedly told police, reported TOI.The police found out during investigation that on September 5, at 5 am, Vishal collected money from his truck driver near Gopalpura, drove to the riverbank, switched off his car’s headlights, and pushed the vehicle into the river.After he pushed the car into the river, he fled to Indore on his driver’s bike, reading newspaper reports of his own “death. Following that he travelled to Shirdi and Shani Shingnapur.After Vishal realised that police had traced his location, he attempted to stage a kidnapping by tearing his clothes, rolling in dust, and filing a false report at Fardapur police station.The police said that there was no direct constitutional provision to penalise a man for faking his own death, and thus Vishal was handed over to his family without a formal case.