Shashi Tharoor Gets 50 Questions at Police Station

mangaloretoday.com/ NDTV

New Delhi, jan 19:  Congress leader Shashi Tharoor was interrogated tonight about the alleged murder of his wife, Sunanda Pushkar, who was found dead in a five-star hotel in Delhi a year ago.

Sources said that Mr Tharoor, who drove into a police station in South Delhi’s Vasant Vihar, was asked over 50 questions by a team of four officers in the first of a likely three rounds of interrogation.

 

Earlier this month, the police launched a murder inquiry after stating that Ms Pushkar who was 51, was poisoned. The murder case does not name a suspect.

Last week, at a press conference at an ayurvedic clinic in Kerala where he spent two weeks, Mr Tharoor  reiterated what he described as his continuing cooperation, but said he has written to Delhi Police Chief BS Bassi with concerns about how the inquiry is being conducted.

Since the murder case was registered on January 6, the police has questioned staff members and friends of Mr Tharoor and Ms Pushkar, who married in 2010. It was the third marriage for both. Mr Tharoor was a union minister in Dr Manhoman Singh’s government when Ms Pushkar publicly accused him of having an affair with a Pakistani journalist. Two days later, she was found dead in her bed in the hotel suite that the couple had checked into.

Ms Pushkar’s death was debated as a possible suicide for months. Mr Tharoor said that he was "stunned" to discover the police believes she was killed.

He said last week that the investigation must be "free of political pressure or a pre-determined outcome."

In a letter to the Delhi Police Chief written in November, he had complained that his domestic helper had been beaten up during interrogation by policemen who wanted him to confess to killing Ms Pushkar along with the politician.

The police chief has said Mr Tharoor’s accusations of an attempt to frame him are baseless.