New Delhi: The report of the post-mortem examination conducted on the body of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, handed over to Sub-Divisional Magistrate Alok Sharma by the AIIMS on Monday, says drug overdose may have caused the death. The SDM said he will examine the pot-mortem report as also the statements of Tharoor and Sunanda's brother and others and accordingly advise the police on Tuesday about further investigations.
The police, after scanning the video footage of the Leela Palace hotel in Chanakyapuri in New Delhi where
she was found dead on Friday night by Shashi Tharoor after he returned fron the All-India Congress Committee
meeting at 8:30 pm, said the video did not show her coming out of the room, No 345, after 16 January (Thursday). The CCTV shows her coming out into the corridor last time on 16 January to attend a phone call, according to reports.
According to the police, two strips of anti-depressant alprazolam (Alprax) tablets were found in the room
out of which 27 had been apparently consumed. Doctors who conducted the autopsy had said there was no trace of alcohol found in the body.
On a request by Tharoor, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has asked the police to expedite the inquiry. Tharoor said he was horrified to see the media speculations.
The three-member team of doctors at the AIIMS had conducted the autopsy on Saturday and the body was
cremated at the Lodhi Road crematorium thereafter. They had said they would give the report on Monday after
getting the results of the laboratory results of the viscera samples they were sending out. They had said it was a
"sudden, unnatural death" and the body had inconsequential "injury marks."
Sunanda, 52, was found dead in the five-star hotel a day after unconfirmed reports in the press about an alleged affair Tharoor had with a Pakistani journalist, Mehr Trar, whom Sunanda's Twitter called a 'stalker' and an 'ISI agent'. Tharoor had said the social network site accounts were hacked and they issued a joint statement saying that they were happily married.
It has now been confirmed that she had been suffering from stomach TB and lupus, an autoimmune disease
which is characterised by an hyperactive immune system that damages any part or organ of the body by fault.
She was discharged from a hospital in Kerala on 14 January.
Earlier reports:
Sunanda Tharoor's body
cremated; post-mortem report inconclusive
Union Minister Shashi
Tharoor's wife Sunanda Pushkar found dead in Delhi hotel
