Former Union Minister and MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor was questioned for the first time by the Delhi police for over four hours on Monday, nearly a year after his wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in the Leela Hotel.
The Congress MP had a meeting with his lawyers at his residence in Lodhi Estate before proceeding to Special Investigation Team office which has been heavily barricaded to keep a waiting media at bay. According to this report on NDTV, Tharoor was questioned by a team of four officers. He was asked a set of 50 questions in the first round of interrogation out of three.
However a report in Times of India, says Tharoor was asked from "a questionnaire comprising 10-15 questions."
The report which quotes a source who was present during the investigation says Tharoor "smiled through most questions and was talking in English and gesturing to make his points," and was not hesitant to make "direct eye-contact".
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. Image courtesy PIB
The Times of India has also accessed part of the questionnaire. One question talks about the 15 injuries on Sunanda Pushkar's body and whether the duo had physical fights. Tharoor denied having hit his his wife but confirmed they had had 'differences', notes the report.
The police also questioned Tharoor on why there were alprax pills in the room and why Pushkar wasn't rushed to the hospital or why the police wasn't called immediately.
According to a report in the DailyMail, which quotes unnamed police sources, the former minister still believed at the time of Sunanda's death that she died of "natural causes." He also told the police that Sunanda's "mental state" was 'normal,' added the report.
Another significant point on which the police questioned Tharoor was why he had said that Sunanda was suffering from lupus, even though the AIIMS report denied she had the disease, notes the DailyMail report.
The report points out that Tharoor was questioned about the controversy over the IPL as well as well as Sunanda's Pushkar's statement to journalist Nandini Singh where she allegedly said that 'Tharoor was finished.'
He was also asked about 'Katie,' why he had deleted certain BBM messages and why his wife was keen to retrieve them, says the report.
According to a report in The Hindu Tharoor was also questioned about his alleged extra-marital affair with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar and the Twitter spat that the involved the trio. A few days before her death, Pushkar had taken over her husband's Twitter account to allege that Tarar was an ISI spy who had ensnared her husband and was having an affair with him. Tharoor and Pushkar had later issued a statement together, which indicated that they had patched up.
According to the TOI report ,Tharoor could be questioned again in the coming days. Delhi police commissioner BS Bassi had earlier on Monday maintained that all those people relevant in the case are being examined by the Special Investigation Team probing the high-profile case.
On the number of times the former union minister can be questioned and for how long, he had said, "I cannot say at this moment. May be it could be for few minutes may be it could be a longer exercise."
Delhi Police had lodged a murder case on 1 January this year, two days after getting the final autopsy report from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Soon after lodging the FIR (first information report), the SIT had questioned Tharoor's domestic help.
On Sunday, Bassi had said that the probe into Pushkar's case would end soon.
"Our SIT (Special Investigation Team) is investigating the case and will reach its conclusion soon. They are looking into each and every aspect. They have already questioned several people and the remaining will be questioned in the next couple of days," Bassi had told the media.
Tharoor has slammed the media, particularly television channels in the ongoing investigations, accusing them of slanderous reporting. He had said in a statement, "Weak libel laws make it easy for Indian media to defame. My lawyers have advised me not to speak to the media," and that every quote attributed to him in the media was an inaccurate paraphrase.
With agency inputs
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