Sunanda Pushkar with Shashi Tharoor | Photo Credit: PTI

New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Monday filed a charge sheet in the death of Sunanda Pushkar, the wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who has been named as an accused in the case and has been charged with abetment to suicide. The charge sheet was filed before Dharmender Singh, the Metropolitan Magistrate, under sections 306 (abetment of suicide) and 498 A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) of the Indian Penal Code. Pushkar was found dead in a luxury hotel room on January 17, 2014.

According to the charge sheet, Pushkar died within 3 years, 3 months and 15 days of her marriage with Tharoor. The Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP, and Pushkar had married on August 22, 2010. On January 1, 2015, the Delhi Police registered an FIR against unknown persons under Section 302 of the IPC section (murder).

"On the basis of medico-legal and forensic evidence analysed during investigation as well as opinion of psychological autopsy experts, Sunanda Pushkar case investigated by SIT of South District, has been charge-sheeted under section 306/498-A of IPC. The matter now is sub-judice," the Delhi Police said as quoted by ANI.

Tharoor had been questioned by Delhi police on the circumstances in which his wife left at Delhi airport and checked into the luxury hotel just two days before her death. According to some reports, the couple had a disagreement on board a Kerala-Delhi flight.

According to the initial post-mortem, poisoning was the cause of her death. Traces of Alzolam were reportedly found in her body along with a strip of sleeping pills in her room, but the actual poison was not confirmed.

Sub-divisional magistrate Alok Sharma led the inquest proceedings and asked the Delhi police to further investigate her death.

A team of AIIMS doctors conducted the autopsy. The doctors’ report said she had several injury marks on her body, but most of them were not linked to her death. However, there were also a few bite marks and an injection mark.

Later, the board of doctors concluded that her death was caused due to poisoning. Subsequently, the police registered a murder case but did not name an accused.

