Congress MP Shashi Tharoor along with his five staff members were grilled for five hours by Delhi Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) in connection with the murder of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. Tharoor especially was put through two searing rounds of questioning by SIT.
In a significant development, Delhi Police also sent Sunanda Pushkar’s viscera to the US to the laboratory of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for
ascertaining the poisonous substance and its quantum.
Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi told The Pioneer that Pushkar’s viscera sample had been sent to the US, two days ago and the report is likely to be completed in two months or so. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) South district Prem Nath flew to the US on Tuesday with the viscera samples of Pushkar for advanced forensic tests.
Bassi said on Thursday that Tharoor along with other five staff members, who were witnesses in the case, were summoned for questioning by SIT, in the afternoon and Tharoor again at 10.30 pm.
“We called six witnesses on Thursday for questioning into the case. SIT confronted them and once again recorded their statements,” Bassi said.
According to sources, SIT officials tried to corroborate their earlier statements in front of them. The questioning was held at Anti-Auto Theft Squad (AATS) office located in
Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area.
The officials of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) were also present during questioning. “It (EOW) is our unit. We want to delve into every aspect of the case with a fine-toothed comb,” said Bassi.
EOW officials were roped in after an Indian Premier league (IPl) controversy leading to “unaccountable money” surfaced during investigation.
In the first round of questioning, SIT had questioned Tharoor and his staff members who were present in the hotel before Pushkar’s death. They had also questioned the couple’s common friends, including politicians and senior journalists.
Fifty two-year-old Pushkar was found dead in a luxury suite of Hotel leela located in South Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar area on January 17, 2014. Police had registered a case under
section 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) after getting the final autopsy report from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on December 28, 2014.
Delhi Police had registered a case on January 1 this year and said Pushkar was
poisoned in her hotel room. They said for ascertaining the substance and its quantity, which was injected or administered orally, they would send her viscera abroad. The AIIMS report mentioned a list of
poisons like polonium, thalium and photolabile, which could be found in her.
Police had also said that the Indian labs were not equipped to ascertain the nature of poison administered to Pushkar. This is the first such case in which Delhi Police had to send viscera samples overseas for a forensic exam.