Sunanda Pushkar death case: Police banking on social media conversations

New Delhi: With forensic evidence not providing much headway in the probe into the Sunanda Pushkar death case, Delhi Police is now banking on the conversations she had with various people including Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar on social networks to unravel the mystery.

Police had written to Yahoo and Google, two platforms on which Pushkar had her email accounts, and also to Twitter and Facebook for details of her social networking pages.

Investigators have already received the desired information from Yahoo and Google while Twitter and Facebook have sought clarification from the police regarding what it actually wants.

According to sources, Yahoo and Google had provided information regarding Pushkar's email and chat conversations with various persons on these platforms. They have also shared with Delhi Police the IP addresses of those, with whom Sunanda was in touch.

Based on the information, police has made a list of the people with whom the wife of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor had communicated and who may now be quizzed in this regard.

Investigators are of the view that the messages exchanged on various social networking sites will reveal Sunanda's state of mind and also the circumstances in which she died and whether her tiff with Tarar had anything to do with her death.

Investigators also want to determine whether some of these mails or chat conversations were deleted. Three of Sunanda's phones have also been sent for detailed analysis to extract the messages exchanged on BBM and whether any of them were wiped off.

Last month, a three-member panel of AIIMS doctors, who had conducted the autopsy on Sunanda had concluded that she died of poisoning but had not mentioned the kind of poison.

The board had also not explained so as to how the poison reached inside her body. Police has now sought answers of these questions from the doctors.

Sunanda was found dead in a five-star hotel in south Delhi on the night of January 17. Police has not registered an FIR in this case and an inquest proceeding under section 176 CrPc is on.

The probe into the case was handed over to the Crime Branch on January 23. However, the case was transferred back to the South District police two days later.