Sunanda was murdered: Police - Calcutta Telegraph

Sunanda Pushkar

New Delhi, Jan. 6: Delhi police today said that Sunanda Pushkar was murdered, giving a sensational turn to the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's wife nearly a year after her body was found in a hotel room.

"We have registered a murder case against unknown persons," police commissioner B.S. Bassi said, citing poisoning as the cause of death.

Tharoor said in a statement that he was "stunned" and promised to cooperate with the probe. Police sources said Tharoor and many others would soon be questioned.

But questions swirled because of the police's failure to attribute any motive, the long delay that was punctuated by contradictory medical and forensic reports, and the failure to identify the poison and its manner of ingestion. ( See charts)

"A probe is on to ascertain the motive," Bassi said.

He said the police move followed the arrival of the final report from a medical board, constituted with experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and including its doctors who had done the autopsy, which said Sunanda, 52, had died of poisoning.

"The poison could have been administered orally or it could have been injected," Bassi told reporters, quoting the report. "It was also not clear whether she had consumed the poison unwittingly or whether it was administered forcibly."

Later, asked by The Telegraph how the police had then decided it was murder and not suicide or accident, Bassi declined comment, saying: "Everything cannot be revealed".

But senior officers who requested not to be quoted said the AIIMS report appeared to tilt towards the injection theory.

It's possible for people to inject themselves with drugs, but reach and handedness (preference for the right or left hand) limits which parts of one's own body a person can access for the purpose.

Bassi said the nature and "quantum" of the poison had not been identified. He said medical samples including the viscera would be sent to foreign labs to ascertain this.

A forensic expert not connected to the case said it was possible to diagnose poisoning without knowing the nature of the poison, based on "frothing and some vague features of poisoning" in general.

Suresh Shetty, professor of forensic science at Kasturba Medical College in Mangalore, added that if the viscera were preserved well, the poison could still be traced at a sophisticated foreign lab a year on.

Sunanda, 52, was found dead on January 17 night last year in a hotel suite she was sharing with her husband, then a Union minister.

A case of unnatural death was registered but got quickly enmeshed in contradictions and allegations of pressure. The AIIMS autopsy report, submitted in March, suggested poisoning but the viscera analysis by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Hyderabad, in April ruled this out.

The lab was then asked to do a second analysis. Its report, which came in November, confirmed poisoning. All the reports were forwarded to the AIIMS medical board, which sent its final report on December 29.

Tharoor has told the police he and Sunanda had checked into the hotel because his ministerial bungalow was being renovated, and that he found Sunanda lying in bed on January 17 when he returned from a Congress meeting around 8.30pm.

Police say Tharoor's staff told them the couple had fought frequently in her last days. During this time, Sunanda had let loose a series of tweets accusing a Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar, of stalking her husband.

But the day before she died, a joint statement attributed to both Tharoor and Sunanda said they were "happily married".

A week after her death, Sunanda's 21-year-old son from a previous marriage, Shiv Menon, had issued a statement saying his mother was "too strong to commit suicide".

"I also do not believe that Shashi was capable of physically harming her, let alone the speculation that he could have taken her life," he said. "They were very much in love, despite occasional differences, which they always overcame."

He added: "It was a combination of media stress, tensions, and a wrong mix of different medication. Her death was peaceful, she passed in her sleep."

The initial probe was conducted by a subdivisional magistrate under a section that deals with deaths in suspicious circumstances, including suicides, of married women less than seven years after their wedding. Tharoor and Sunanda had married in August 2010.

"I am stunned to hear that the Delhi police have filed a case of murder against unknown persons in the demise of my late wife Sunanda," Tharoor's statement said.

"Needless to say, I am anxious to see this case is investigated thoroughly and continue to assure the police of my full cooperation. Although we have never thought of any foul play in the death of my wife, we all want that a comprehensive investigation be conducted and that the unvarnished truth should come out."

It added: "In the meantime I join all members of Sunanda's family in asking for full information about the basis on which the police have come to this conclusion. We have not been provided with copies of the post-mortem report and other reports of the inquiry, like the CFSL report, till date. We repeat our request for a copy of these reports to be provided to us immediately."

A team lead by the deputy commissioner (south) will investigate the case.

Additional reporting by G.S. Mudur