A young man in India has pushed his brand-new BMW into a river in an apparent protest against his parents' refusal to buy him a Jaguar for his birthday. Police in the north Indian state of Haryana say the 22-year-old man, identified only as Akash, received a BMW from his parents as a birthday present.

According to local media, the man's father is a wealthy landlord and the 22-year-old son already owned several SUVs. The son apparently had demanded a new Jaguar for his birthday and was unimpressed with the BMW, which he thought was too small.

A BMW was retrieved from a river in the district of Yamunanagar, with a team of local police using ropes and a rubber boat to reach the partially submerged vehicle. The young man's father told local media that his son had not deliberately driven the car into the river but had swerved to avoid an antelope on the road.

Local police say the man filmed the car in the water and sent the video to his parents. Hundreds of local men watched the recovery effort from the riverbank as heavy machinery was brought in to retrieve the car. Despite struggling to overcome chronic poverty among large swathes of the population, India is experiencing a rapid growth of wealth among its richest citizens.

The number of 'ultra-high net worth individuals' (UHNWIs) in India has grown by 24 per cent in the last five years, according to annual global wealth survey the Knight Frank wealth report. That's the fastest rate of private wealth growth in the Asia-Pacific. A UHNWI individual is defined as someone with more than US$30 million in assets. India's millionaires are also more likely to have inherited wealth than built it up from scratch, in comparison to millionaires in other countries.