A Special Investigation Team has been formed by the Delhi Police to probe the mysterious death of Sunanda Pushkar after registering a murder case based on a medical report.
“We have formed an SIT to probe the Sunanda Pushkar case,” Delhi Police chief B.S. Bassi said on Wednesday.
The Police Commissioner also did not rule out questioning her husband Shashi Tharoor, saying “whatever necessary will be done” in investigating the case.
Asked why a case of murder was registered almost a year after her death, Mr. Bassi said the final medical report from AIIMS warranted the FIR to be filed so that Pushkar’s viscera samples can be sent abroad for further tests.
“When we file a case under Sec 302 of IPC, it means we have prima facie reasons to believe that it is a case of murder,” Mr. Bassi said.
Delhi Police had on Tuesday registered a murder case into Pushkar's death under section 302 of the IPC on the basis of an AIIMS medical report that concluded that her death was unnatural and due to poisoning, but nobody has been named as a suspect as yet. No one has been named in the FIR too.
The investigators have decided to send her viscera samples to a laboratory either in Britain or the U.S. to identify the poison including whether it could be radioactive isotopes that cannot be detected in Indian labs.
Sources said a Delhi Police team visited a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram recently where Pushkar was admitted days before she was found dead in a five-star hotel in Delhi.
“The team met the doctors who had treated Pushkar and questioned them about the ailment she was admitted there and asked them to share her medical records,” a senior police official said.
The SIT is likely to question Mr. Tharoor, his relatives and personal staff along with the employees of the five-star hotel where she was found dead on January 17 last year, the sources said.
It will also examine the hotel doctor who declared Sunanda dead and go through CCTV footage of the hotel.
The forensic report of Pushkar’s mobile phones and laptop which were sent for tests will also be evaluated.
“Listed among the possibility (of poison) is Polonium-210, a rare and highly radioactive isotope, which is hard to detect because all the radiation remains in the body. A lethal dose could be as little as a few milligrams, which could be administered as a powder or dissolved in liquid/drinks,” said the AIIMS report. >Read more…
The final report, prepared by the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences after studying the viscera report, says Sunanda’s death was caused by “poison” and not by an “overdose of Alprax.” This contradicts the preliminary report, which said “Alprax” was detected in the body. >Read more…
Eminent forensic scientist P. Chandrasekharan, who served as the principal scientific investigator in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, said the death of Sunanda Pushkar was “accidental and self-induced” >Read more…
.Shashi Tharoor refused to comment on the controversy stirred by a senior AIIMS forensic doctor’s allegation that he was pressured to manipulate the post mortem report of Sunanda Pushkar >Read more…
AIIMS forensic department head stuck to his controversial claim that he was pressurized to manipulate the post mortem report of Sunanda Pushkar >Read more…
Family sources told The Hindu that Sunanda Pushkar was deeply stressed after she dramatically tweeted messages suggesting a romantic relationship between her husband and Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar. >Read more…
