Sunanda's cause of death poisoning, says post-mortem report

The controversy over the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, took a new turn Thursday with the leak of her latest post mortem report, submitted to AIIMS, stating the cause of death as "poisoning".

The revelation came around ten days after the post mortem report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) was submitted to the Delhi Police by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Pushkar, 52, was found dead in a mysterious condition in her room at a five-star hotel in south Delhi Jan 17.

The leaked report said that the AIIMS medical board "had thoroughly pursued the various documents that were submitted to them by the investigating officers along with the post mortem report and histopathology report of viscera after which it was concluded the cause of Pushkar's death is poisoning".

"Viscera are positive for ethyl alcohol, caffeine, acetaminophen and cotinine," it said.

The report also revealed that the medical report reserved comment on the specific poison or chemical responsible since there was a lot of limitations on the viscera report.

"The duration of injuries have been opined already. However, the reason of these physical injuries, circumstantial evidences and statements have not been submitted by the investigative officer," the report states.

Speaking on the matter Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat told IANS: "Under section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the inquest proceeding in the Sundanda Pushkar case is still pending and we didn't add anything in it."