The Delhi Police has constituted a four-member team to prepare a report following court order on The leela Palace hotel’s plea to de-seal room 345 where Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead.
The team, under the supervision of DCP South district Ishwar Singh, was reportedly formed on the directions of Commissioner of Delhi Police Amulya Patnaik.
The other team members are Station House officer (SHO) of lodhi Colony Police Station Inspector Ravi Shankar, SHO of Kotla Mubarakpur Police Station, Inspector Veer Kishan Pal Singh and Inspector Anti Terrorist Operations (ATO) of Sarojini Nagar Police station Pradeep Rawat.
The team has to prepare the report before July 14 this year, the next date of hearing in the matter fixed by the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Dr Pankaj Sharma.
“A day after The leela Palace moved the court, the DCP South discussed the matter with Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, who then asked him to form a team to file the reply. SHO lodhi Colony, SHO KM Pur and ATO Sarojini Nagar were roped in as they were previously looking into the Sunanda murder case,” a police source said
The report will be based on the investigations left in the suite for which the room needs to be kept sealed, said the source.
The Pioneer had exclusively reported leela hotel’s plea to the court seeking permission to open suite number 345 to which the court had asked police for a report as to why the room has still been sealed.
The court had sought the reply of Delhi Police on how much time would it require to de-seal the suite where Sunanda was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Januray 2014.
The hotel said in its plea that it has on previous occasions approached the Delhi Police for their assistance in de-sealing the suite. However, their efforts went in vain.
“The investigating agency involved, including multiple forensic teams, have visited the suite and collected requisite samples on numerous occasions. But it is pertinent to note that since one year, no investigating agency has visited the suite and therefore the suite is not required to be kept sealed any longer,” the hotel said in its application.
It further claimed that there are 17 suites in the entire hotel. The cost of these suites ranges from Rs55,000 to Rs61,000 per night, depending on the season. But the hotel’s inability to offer the suite number 345 to its patrons in the last 3 years has incurred a loss of approximately Rs50 lakh.
Pushkar was found dead at the five-star hotel located in south Delhi’s Chanakyapuri on January 17, 2014, after which the suite was sealed.