The registration of a murder case in connection with the death of Sunanda Pushkar has raised many eyebrows and taken things in flashback. In its report in September, the AIIMS medical board had stated lapses on the part of the police and also lack of techniques to detect certain poisons.
The report had mentioned six kinds of poisons namely Thallium, Polonium-210, Nerium-Oleander, Snake bites, Photolabile poisons and heroin which could not be detected by the forensics lab in India. Samples were also sent to Kerala for examination but nothing conclusive could come out of it.
Sources revealed that the death was most probably caused by the Russian Polonium drug which was the toughest to be detected and now the samples would be sent abroad for forensic examination. Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, who had also filed a PIl with regard to the case, alleged that her cheek was forcefully opened and she was fed something which further lead to her death.
“There were four people who had taken rooms at the leela hotel on fake passports. They later fled to Dubai and Pakistan but no one cross-examined them or probed that,” said Swamy. The first post-mortem report by AIIMS had stated it to be a case of poisoning and that the circumstantial evidence suggests alprazolam poisoning. It also mentioned about two injuries; injury number 10 which was an injection mark and injury number 12 which was a teeth bite mark.
Besides, statements of Shashi Tharoor were contradictory. On one hand, he claimed that he found out that she had died when he returned from the AICC conference and on the other hand he claimed that his personal secretary informed him about it at 4:30 pm. Statements will now have to be reexamined and Tharoor is likely to be questioned by the police again.