File photo of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor.
The investigation into the death of
Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, wife of union minister Shahi Tharoor, was today transferred to the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police, denoting that the case is being treated as a complex one.
Mrs Tharoor, 52, was found dead last week in a five-star hotel in Delhi, days after she said she had uncovered evidence of her husband's affair with a Pakistani journalist who she targeted with a litany of tweets. However, the Tharoors then released a statement saying they were happily married.
An autopsy report found that she died of poisoning. Doctors who handled her post-mortem described her death as "sudden and unnatural" and said that though she had injuries on the upper half of her body, they were not the cause of her death.
Under law, a magisterial inquiry is automatic if a woman dies within seven years of marriage. The Tharoors were married in 2010, the third marriage for both of them. Yesterday, the magistrate heading the inquest asked the Delhi Police to determine whether Mrs Tharoor's death was accidental, a suicide, or murder.
(Read)Mr Tharoor, the junior minister for Human Resource Development, has urged a swift inquiry, saying he is horrified to read speculative reports about the couple's personal lives.
(Read) His party, the Congress, has said he will not be asked to stay away from office till the inquiry is completed, a suggestion made by one of its allies, the Nationalist Congress Party.
(Read)Mrs Tharoor's son, Shiv Menon, in a statement yesterday blamed her death on an "unfortunate combination of media stress, tensions and wrong mix of different medications", adding "I also do not believe that Shashi was capable of physically harming her, let alone the speculation that he could have taken her life."
(Read)