New Delhi, January 8 – In yet another development in the sensational Sunanda Pushkar murder case, her husband and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had alleged last year that the Delhi Police had threatened his domestic help to name him as the killer of his wife.
In a letter dated November 13, 2014 written by Tharoor to Delhi Police Commissioner GS Bassi and available exclusively with Headlines Today, the former Union minister had complained about the Investigating Officer intimidating and physically assaulting his help, Narayan Singh, to confess that he and Tharoor murdered Pushkar.
“In the course of the interrogation conducted by Delhi Police officers… my domestic help, Shri Narayan Singh was repeatedly physically assaulted by one of your officers. Worse, that officer used the traumatic physical assault to try and intimidate Narayan into “confessing” that he and I had murdered my wife,” the letter said.
The 49-year-old was found dead in a room of a five star in New Delhi on January 17, 2013, a day after she and Tharoor checked in because their official house was allegedly being painted. The two had been married twice earlier. Tharoor was then the Minister of State for Human Resource Development in the Manmohan Singh government.
Pictures of Pushkar inside a five-star hotel room in New Delhi, available exclusively with the Headlines Today, showed her lying on the bed with injury marks on her neck and wrist.
The 49-year-old was found dead on January 17, 2013, a day after she and Tharoor checked in because their house was allegedly getting painted. Both had been married twice earlier.
Sources in the Delhi Police also told Headlines Today that at least two men entered Pushkar’s room the day she was killed and allegedly cleaned up the room to destroy evidence against the killers.
The hotel room where she was found dead was revisited by police and forensic experts recently. The suite had remained sealed and was opened for the first time since the incident for the visit.
Appearing on another TV channel, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy also claimed that at least four people with fake passports were living in the New Delhi hotel when Pushkar was poisoned. Meanwhile, Delhi Police on Wednesday formed a Special Investigation Team to probe the murder.
“A special investigation team has been set up which will be closely monitored by DCP South, Additional DCP South,1 inspector and SHO,” Bassi told the reporters. “We will take all necessary steps as per our investigation plan,” he said.
Asked if the team will question Tharoor again, Bassi said: “As far as questioning is concerned, whatever is necessary will be done.” Tharoor had on Tuesday said he was stunned by the Delhi Police’s decision to call his wife’s death a murder.
Delhi Police is now planning to send Pushkar’s viscera samples to a laboratory either in Britain or the US to identify the poison including whether it could be radioactive isotopes that cannot be detected in Indian labs.
“She died due to poisoning. Whether the poison was given orally or injected into her body is being probed,” he said, adding her viscera would be sent abroad.
-INDIA TODAY
