Sunanda Pushkar was murdered, says 'secret report'

A confidential report, accessed by DNA, claims that senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor's wife Sunanda was indeed murdered.

New Delhi: In a fresh twist to the Sunanda Pushkar death mystery, a confidential report has claimed that senior Congress leader and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor's wife was indeed murdered. The report, exclusively accessed by DNA, states that investigators knew the answer as to who killed Sunanda Pushkar from the beginning yet her death has been kept a mystery till today.

Here is what the DNA report says in connection with Sunanda Pushkar death case.

According to the first report prepared in the case by the then Deputy Commissioner of Police BS Jaiswal, it clearly states that the Sub Divisional Magistrate at Vasant Vihar Alok Sharma, who inspected the place of crime at Leela Hotel and conducted the inquest proceeding, was of the view that it was not a suicide. 

The report, exclusively accessed by DNA, states unsatisfied with the inquest proceedings, Sub Divisional Magistrate had ordered the Station House Officer of Sarojini Nagar to investigate the case as murder.

The decision was made when the autopsy report stated,"The cause of death to the best of my knowledge and belief, in this case, is poisoning. The circumstantial evidenced are suggestive of alprazolam poisoning. All the injuries mentioned are caused by blunt force, simple in nature, non-contributing to death and are produced in a scuffle, except injury number 10 with an injection mark. Injury number 12 is teeth bite mark. The injuries number 1 to 15 is of various durations ranging from 12 hours to 4 days.” 

The report clearly stated that the injection marks were fresh.

The report also states the body of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor had various scuffle marks. 

“These seem to have caused due to a scuffle between Sunanda Pushkar and her Husband Shashi Tharoor as per the statement of their personal attendant Narain Singh,” said the report which was submitted to then Southern Delhi range Joint Commissioner of Police Vivek Gogia, who was given a task to personally monitor the case. The report was further submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Even after the cause of the death was found, the police did not file a case into the matter. And when the matter was transferred to crime branch after a week and decided to file an FIR of murder and start the probe, Gogia managed to get the case back within four hours from crime branch. 

The Crime Branch had also visited that crime spot when the murder took place. The decision of the then Commissioner of Police BS Bassi led to delay in registration of FIR in the case for a year and investigation for almost two years.

The secret report had all the annexure, which included, post-mortem, chemical,  biological fingerprints reports – accessed by DNA -- separately and each report pointed towards murder yet the police did not registered a case.

Interestingly, the report questioned the teeth bite marks of the hand of the Pushkar and also the injection mark on her hand. “Whether poisoned was orally given or injected is a matter to be probed,” the report stated.

On January 17, 2014, at about 9 pm police came to know that Sunanda Pushkar has died in Room Number 345, which is a suite, at Hotel Leela Palace. Preliminary enquiries stated that she had checked in to this hotel on January 15, 2014, at 5: 46 pm. The room number 307 was earlier given to her, later on, she moved to Room number 345 in the afternoon on January 16, 1 2014.

Also, the crime branch sleuths and journalist Nalini Singh stated that Sunanda wanted to a presser. At 3 pm, she had asked her assistant to take out her white dress as she wanted to do a press conference. Next thing happened, she was found dead. The question remained the same. Who killed the socialite Sunanda Puskhar. 

Since the deceased had died within seven years of her marriage, the SDM Alok Sharma was informed who inspected the place of crime and conducted the inquest proceedings.

"The death was mysterious and everything pointed out towards murder from day one," said a senior police officer who was then investigating the case said.