Sunanda Pushkar Poisoned, Death Ruled Homicide By Delhi Police
Delhi Police registered Sunanda Pushkar’s mysterious death as a case of murder after a medical report indicated that her death came as the result of poisoning. Authorities have yet to name a suspect in the Canadian’s death.
Sunanda was the wife of Indian diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor. The 51-year-old was born Sunanda Dass in Toronto, Canada, and was married to Shashi from 2010 to 2014. She was a sales manager at TECOM Investments, a Dubai-based company, and a co-owner of Rendezvous Sports World, based in India. The couple met at a party organized by billionaire Sunny Varkey and was later wed in a Malayali wedding ceremony, which took place in Tharoor’s ancestral home at Elevanchery in Kerala, India. The marriage was the third marriage for both Sunanda and Shashi.
Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi did not rule out the questioning of Tharoor, who is now a Congress MP and formerly a Union Minister. Bassi told reporters that “nobody has been named in the case,” in response to their questions regarding a suspect in the poisoning death of Sunanda.
In a two-month-old letter from Shashi Tharoor that surfaced Wednesday, the MP accuses the Delhi Police of trying to frame him, the Hindu reported. In the letter to Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi on November 12, Tharoor said a police officer had repeatedly assaulted one of his servants in an attempt to intimidate him into giving a statement indicating that the two of them had murdered Pushkar together.
Bassi indicated that tests to find out the quantum and nature of the poison cannot take place in India, so police have decided to send samples abroad for examination.
As for who will be investigated in connection with the murder, Bassi said that “all those people who were connected with the case will be examined” in light of the case being registered as a case of murder.
“All the witnesses in this case were examined by the SDM, as he conducted inquest proceedings. So, all relevant witnesses were examined by him, we had also examined them under Section 174 of the Cr.PC. Now as we have registered a case of murder, all those people connected with the case will be examined.”
Sunanda was discovered dead at the age of 49 in a luxury hotel in January 17, 2014. Nearly a year after her death, Delhi Police have filed the case of murder under section 302 of the IPC.
Bassi indicated that the AIIMS report has not specified how the poison was introduced to the victim. While the means of delivery and substance are both unknown to authorities at this time, what is evident is that she was poisoned and that this is a case of murder, which came hot on the heels of what the Economic Times referred to as “a bitter spat between the couple of the [T]witter over his [Shashi Tharoor] alleged affair with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar.”
Tharoor issued his first statement, which Inquisitr covered back in January of 2014, to investigators in the wake of his wife’s death. In what has become one of the strangest scandals in modern Indian government, the high profile Indian Union Minister found himself amidst what some have called a “Twitter love triangle” of international proportions.
Who do you think is responsible for Sunanda’s death?
[Image via Swarajya]
