PNN and Agencies, New Delhi, Jan 7: A police team formed to investigate afresh Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar’s murder has started work, Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi said Wednesday.
“The special team is looking into each and every possibility of the case. Whatever is needed will be done,” Bassi told the media.
Asked if Tharoor, a former central minister and now a Congress MP, would be questioned, he said: “We will do, if needed.”
On Tuesday, the police said a case of murder had been registered against “unknown persons” after a medical report confirmed that Pushkar, found dead in a luxury hotel here in January 2014, was poisoned to death.
Informed sources told IANS that a Delhi Police team visited the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences in Thiruvananthapuram last month to speak to doctors who had treated Pushkar.
Pushkar, 52, was found dead in mysterious circumstances January 17, a day after she and her husband checked into a New Delhi hotel because their house was getting painted. Tharoor was then a minister in the government of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
After police announced Tuesday that Pushkar was murdered, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist in Kerala asked Tharoor to quit his Lok Sabha seat.
AIIMS report didn’t mention ‘homicide’
The head of the AIIMS medical board based on whose report a murder case was registered into Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death, today said the panel did not mention “homicide” in its findings and it found “poisoning” as the cause of her death.
“Our report doesn’t mention the death is homicidal in nature. It is due to poisoning. Police had sought an opinion in the matter and we have already given it. Now it is for the police to probe further,” head of the medical board Sudhir Gupta here said.
He was responding to a question from reporters on whether the report mentioned the nature of death as homicidal.
Gupta, who is the AIIMS forensic chief further said that it was not his individual opinion and that the report was based on the “opinion given by the medical board comprising three doctors.”
“We have also taken an individual opinion of the head of department of pathology of a leading hospital in Delhi,” said Gupta, adding, he had professionally conducted the autopsy.
I am being implicated, complains Tharoor
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has said that a Delhi Police official had attempted to implicate him and a domestic help in the murder of his wife Sunanda Pushkar.
In a letter to Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi dated Nov 12 and accessed by the media Wednesday, Tharoor urged the police chief to take action against the concerned officer.
Tharoor said that four Delhi Police officers interrogated his domestic help Narayan Singh for 16 hours on November 7 and for 14 hours on November 8. On both the days, Tharoor alleged that 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 murdered my wife,” the former central minister said.
Tharoor recalled that he expressed his concerns to Bassi over telephone on the night of Nov 8.
“As you graciously agreed, such conduct is completely unacceptable and illegal,” Tharoor said in his letter. “It also amounts to the use of physical coercion in the attempt to frame an innocent man.
“I would request you to take immediate and appropriate action against such unlawful misconduct of the officer concerned.
“My staff and I have always made ourselves available for any kind of inquiry and investigation but the recent behaviour of the officers towards my staff is a matter of serious concern to any law abiding citizen.
“Please look into the matter personally and ensure that the unvarnished truth comes out in this case.”
Tharoor said he had “complete trust and faith” in Delhi Police and that he was committed to “fully cooperating with the investigations to ensure the timely completion of the inquiry”.
The letter became public knowledge a day after Delhi Police announced that Pushkar, found dead in a hotel a year ago, was poisoned to death.
Bassi said Tuesday that this was the conclusion of the final medical report of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, which had conducted Pushkar’s autopsy. AIIMS in its earlier report sent in September named a few poisons which could not be detected easily by forensic laboratories in the country.
