SUNANDA PUSHKAR MURDER

SUNANDA PUSHKAR MURDER

Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in her hotel room on Janurary 17, 2014. The post mortem reports at the time pointed out poisoning as the reason for death. Later on, the viscera report ruled out the presence of poison or any trace of anxiety medicines.

On the eve of her death, she had a verbal spat with Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar on a social networking site, after rumours that Tarar had an affair with her husband, Shashi Tharoor. Even though Tarar denied these allegations, the ugly spat between the two women was followed by a series of ambiguous tweets by Tharoor, who later said that his account was hacked.

The controversy surrounding her death began when the hotel staff who found her body, quit due to personal reason. A number of reports suggested that Shashi Tharoor was the first to find her dead. Tharoor spent most of the day at the AICC meeting in Talkatora Stadium. The head of forensic department at AIIMS, Dr Sudhir Gupta later said that he was pressurised to fabricate the autopsy report. This once again raised issues on the unexplained injection mark on her right wrist.

In a twist in the case, the Delhi Police of January 6,2015, registered a murder case on the basis of a medical report that concluded that Sunanda's death was unnatural and due to poisoning. However nobody has been named as a suspect yet.​ Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi said it was not clear whether she had consumed the poison on her own or it was administered forcefully or by injection​.

The recent broadcast of 19 phone recordings about Shashi Tharoor’s alleged involvement in the case by Republic TV in the month of May’17 has brought renewed interest in this high profile murder case.