Sunanda Pushkar's body shifted to AIIMS for post-mortem

The body of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, was on Saturday shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for post-mortem as police continued to probe various angles including suicide in the case.

Sources said a post-mortem would be carried out around noon by a team of doctors and the report could be available later in the evening.

The body of 52-year-old Pushkar was taken from the Leela Palace Hotel to the AIIMS at around 3:30 AM, sources said. Pushkar, who was upset over an alleged extra-marital affair between her minister husband Shashi Tharoor and a Pakistani journalist, was found dead in the hotel on Friday night.

Police had last night questioned a number of hotel staff and checked the CCTV footage of the lobby of the third floor of the luxury hotel where she was staying. Sources in police said call details record of Pushkar was also being checked as part of the probe into her death.

Pushkar was found dead inside the suite no 345 in the hotel where she and her husband had checked in on Thursday.             Investigators said they are screening the call details record of Pushkar as well as her tweets in the last few days.

They said a number of hotel staff, including those who had gone to the suite, were being questioned to corroborate the version of Tharooor and his staff. The police is also searching the suite thoroughly to see whether Pushkar had used any medicine, they said.

Police sources speaking on condition of anonymity said they suspect it could be a case of suicide. Pushkar and Tharoor were at the centre of a raging controversy when reports emerged that she was upset over reported text and tweet messages between her husband and Mehr Tarar, a Pakistani journalist.

A joint statement from the couple on Thursday said that they were "happily married" but distressed by "some unauthorised tweets".

Pushkar had accused Tarar of "stalking" her husband and trying to "break" her marriage when she was away for medical treatment. She had told couple of newspapers that she was considering divorce from Tharoor in the wake of the alleged extra-marital affair.

The Pakistani journalist rubbished the charges of having any relationship with Tharoor who is Congress Lok Sabha member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram.

After Pushkar's death Tarar had tweeted: "I just woke up and read this. I'm absolutely shocked. This is too awful for words. So tragic I don't know what to say. Rest in peace, Sunanda."

In another tweet she said "What the hell. Sunanda. Oh my God."

Asked about the cause of death, Delhi police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat had said there is no apparent sign which can reveal that.