Officials probing the Sunanda Puskhar murder case questioned one of the domestic helps of her husband Shashi Tharoor on Thursday.
Though the police did not divulge the details, it is learnt that the help, Shiv Narayan Singh, was asked about his whereabouts on the day she died. Mr. Tharoor had earlier accused the Delhi Police of intimidating Singh into making a confession that he and his employer were behind her death.
A source said Singh was interrogated at length by the Special Investigating Team after he arrived in the Capital from Himachal Pradesh, where he was contacted by the police and asked to join the probe. This is the third time Singh has been questioned since Ms. Pushkar’s death and the first since the registration of the murder case. The previous two interrogation sessions were extensive, running to 14 and 16 hours, according to Mr. Tharoor’s letter sent to Delhi Police Chief in November last.
Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi confirmed the development, but refused to reveal whether more persons were questioned in the course of the day. Neither would he say who was next in line to be questioned.
He, however, dismissed media reports that legal notice was being sent to the Congress MP in connection with the murder and that he was to be summoned for questioning. “We have not issued any formal legal notice to Shashi Tharoor,” he said. A medical report submitted to the police on December 29 confirmed that the death was caused by poisoning. Among the different kinds of poison doctors suspect could have killed Ms. Pushkar is Polonium 210, a radioactive isotope. The report also said the poison could have been injected or fed orally.
