A burning candle has replaced Lahore based journalist Mehr Tarar’s photo on her twitter profile after Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor was found dead in a hotel in New Delhi on Friday night. The woman whom the late Ms Tharoor accused of stalking her husband and being an ISI agent, told a private news channel on Saturday that she was the victim of a conspiracy and that she had nothing to do with the issues between Union minister Shashi Tharoor and his wife. Ms Tarar said she was anguished by her death and whatever she had to say about Mr Tharoor was on her twitter timeline.
Ms Tarar, 45, had told The Hindu earlier that she had met Mr. Tharoor only twice and in the company of other people. She was accused of stalking Mr. Tharoor and for calling him and sending him emails. In an interview with Mr. Tharoor last year, Ms Tarar had praised him and she told the channel that his wife probably didn’t like it that another woman did so. If private emails doing the rounds on the internet are to be believed, Ms Tharoor had asked her husband to stop being in touch with Ms Tarar.
Ms Tarar said that the Indian minister continued following her on twitter and again Ms Tharoor was worked up over this. She said she couldn’t understand why there was a problem with her talking to Mr. Tharoor on the phone or sending him emails and she only spoke about things which she did with anyone else. She also pointed out that it was evident if you Googled the internet that their marriage was in trouble before she met him.
Earlier as soon as news of Sunanda’s death broke, Mehr Tarar tweeted “just woke up and read this. I'm absolutely shocked. This is too awful for words. So tragic I don't know what to say. Rest in peace, Sunanda.”
Before that Tarar said “What the hell. Sunanda. Oh my God”.
She had also told The Hindu on Thursday that calling her an ISI agent was putting her life and that of her family’s in danger while reacting to the unseemly twitter war. Ms Tarar, who has a young child and spends most of her time at home, says she has no idea why this sudden attack was launched on her. “I am so sensitive to Indian issues and Ms. Tharoor attacked me first after I did an interview with Omar Abdullah.
She tweeted that he gave interviews to Pakistani journalists and not Indians,” says Ms Tarar. The comments started on December 25 and finally she said she had enough and changed her initial decision to stay quiet after being called an ISI agent. “How does one stalk on the phone? What will I get out of it? And I am not a 14- year- old to indulge in this kind of behavior,” she had said.
She did not respond to a request for comments on the matter after Ms Tharoor's death.
