New Delhi: Sunanda Pushkar and Union minister Shashi Tharoor got married in 2010.
The police is questioning Tharoor’s personal assistant R.K. Sharma, his personal secretary Abninav Kumar, and other hotel staff in the investigation. Tharoor was also reportedly being questioned in the presence of the SDM.
Sunanda was reportedly suffering from tuberculosis. The incident could not have come at worse time for the Union minister. A few days ago a controversy had broken out with Sunanda allegedly accusing the minister of having an affair with a Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar. The controversy dominated the social media with posts appearing on Tharoor’s alleged affair with the Pakistani journalist.
While Tharoor claimed that his Twitter account had been hacked, his wife gave statements claiming she had posted the messages. Sunanda in her tweets also alleged that the Pakistani journalist was “stalking her husband” and that she was an “ISI agent”.
However, on Thursday, reiterating her accusations against the Pakistani journalist, Sunanda claimed that “there was nothing wrong with the marriage”.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to Tharoor on Friday night. “I am deeply saddened at your loss. May God give you strength in this hour of grief,” Dr Singh told Tharoor. According to the police, after spending the entire day at the AICC meet, Tharoor went to the hotel at about 7.15 pm. He had tea and asked his PA to wake Sunanda. When she did not respond, they called the hotel doctor, who declared her dead.
The doctor said she may have died four hours earlier, but the police said the time of death would be established only after an autopsy.
The police said Sunanda was found lying on the bed and “there was no sign of any scuffle.” The police is trying to find out whether there had been a scuffle involving the victim. “We are also trying to find out whether she had consumed anything poisonous,” a senior police officer said.
Sunanda’s friend Farah Ali Khan, said, “I know she would never end her life. She was full of life. I am shocked.”
It is learnt that Tharoor and his wife checked into the Leela Hotel’s Room 345 on Thursday as there was some renovation going on in their house. “The couple had gone to Trivandrum only on January 10. Sunanda was taken ill there,” a police source said.
On the microblog site Twitter, Sunanda apparently tweeted for quite some time on Thursday night. In one of her tweets she said, “mehrtarar has lied outright I have all her emails and her bbms to my husband. I don’t lie.” To a tweet asking “Mam when U and Mr Tharoor(Ex. External Affair Min) will be on KoffeewithKaran with @MehrTarar,” she replied, “Haaaa LOL that will never happen.”
Pakistan journalist Mehr Tarar, on hearing the news, tweeted: “What the hell. Sunanda. Oh my God.” And then added: “I just woke up and read this. I’m absolutely shocked. This is too awful for words. So tragic I don’t know what to say. Rest in peace, Sunanda.”
Among Sunanda’s last tweets, at 5.27 am, was: “a close frn of mine got, so made she did it but as v Hindus says joh hona hota hai woh hokay rahey ga.”
This was followed by another tweet three minutes later in which she replied to one of her friends enquiring about her health: “Will try, got so many issues diagnosed in KIMS (Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences) that now who knows when I got 2 go with joy hastay huey jayengey.”
