New Delhi: Delhi Police on Saturday urged a city court to prosecute Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for abetment to suicide or “in alternative” on murder charge in the case of death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar in 2014.
“Please frame sections 498-A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty), 306 (abetment of suicide) or in alternative 302 (murder) IPC against the accused (Tharoor),” the probe agency told special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar.
Senior public prosecutor Atul Srivastava made the submissions during arguments on framing of charges in the case. The former Union minister, who is currently on bail in the case, was charged by Delhi Police under Sections 498-A and 306 of the Indian Penal Code.
Reading out a statement of the couple’s domestics help, who is one of the witnesses, the prosecutor said that the couple had fight over a girl named ‘Katy’ and some Blackberry messages. The prosecutor said before her death, Pushkar wanted to address a press meet on the IPL issue and had said, “I will not leave him (Tharoor).” The witness had told police one year prior to the demise, the couple used to fight a lot. The agency told the court Pushkar was “distressed” and “felt betrayed” in her marital life.
Police told the court Pushkar was suffering from mental agony due to a strained relationship with her husband. She had a scuffle with her husband and had various injury marks few days before her death, they said. Police accused Tharoor of torturing his wife which abetted her to commit suicide. The probe agency told the court according to the post-mortem report, the cause of Pushkar’s death was poisoning and 15 injury marks were found on various parts of her body, including in forearm, arms and legs. The prosecutor said Tharoor’s relation with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar also added to Pushkar’s mental agony.
The prosecutor also apprised the court about Pushkar’s friend and journalist Nalini Singh’s statement, which is part of the charge sheet, that the relation between the couple was tense and bad.
“She (Pushkar) told she helped Tharoor a lot in IPL matter. She had found some messages between Tarar and Tharoor. She refused to go to their house and instead went to Leela hotel. The relation between the couple was very bad,” Singh had said in her statement.
‘He spent 3 nights in Dubai with Pak scribe’
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor and Pakistani journalist Meher Tarar spent three nights together in Dubai, the prosecution told a Delhi court on Saturday citing the statement of Sunanda Pushkar's journalist friend. Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava read out the statement of journalist Nalini Singh, who was the friend of the deceased. The statement said: “I knew Sunanda for 3-4 years. For last one year she started sharing about her personal life. She shared her relationship with Tharoor and told me that Tharoor and Tarar spent three nights together. “I got a call from her phone a day before her death, she was weeping that Tharoor and Tarar shared romantic messages. The message read Tharoor would divorce Sunanda after the general election. His family was also supportive of this decision,” the statement said.
