Plea in SC for NIA probe into Sunanda Pushkar's death

The Supreme Court was moved Friday for a NIA probe into the circumstances leading to the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of former union minister Shashi Tharoor, on the grounds of an alleged ISI dimension to the case.

The petitioner, lawyer N. Rajaraman, contended that he had made an online request to the President for a NIA probe into the case because of the ISI angle as was spelt out by Sunanda Pushkar herself.

Pushkar was found dead in a five star hotel in South Delhi on the night of Jan 17, a day after her Twitter spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar over the latter's alleged affair with Tharoor.

The petitioner said that there was evidence as per press reports of a series of intimate messages, supposedly sent by Tarar to Tharoor, and posted on Tharoor's Twitter account.

The messages proclaimed Tarar's love for Tharoor, the plea said.

Tharoor tried to downplay the incident by stating that his account had been hacked, the petition said.

However, Pushkar later stated that the account had not been hacked and that she had posted the messages to expose what she believed to be Tarar's stalking of her husband, said the petitioner

The petitioner said that Sunanda was the daughter of an army officer and alleged that Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar was an agent of the Pakistani spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

Rajaraman said that he sent an elaborate email to the Union home secretary seeking a NIA probe into the matter.

The petition said that the autopsy report of Pushkar prepared by Sudhir Gupta, head of AIIMS' forensic sciences department had mentioned more than a dozen injury marks on Pushkar's hands and an abrasion on her cheek which suggests a "use of blunt force" besides a "deep teeth bite" on the edge of her left palm.

Viscera samples were preserved after the autopsy at AIIMS and were sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) for further tests.

The CFSL report hinted at drug poisoning but its findings were not conclusive enough to file an FIR in the case, according to police.