After police found nothing conclusively new in the statement Shashi Tharoor’s help, Narayan Singh, gave them, they are drawing up a list of persons Sunanda Pushkar was in touch with in the two months prior to her death.
Police have come up with a list, which includes friends, family and business partners. Sources said though police questioned Singh for over five hours on Thursday, especially with regard to who Pushkar had met in the 48 hours prior to her death, he had nothing new to add to the statement he had made to the SDM last year.
Police are drawing up a list of around four or five persons, who Pushkar had called and hinted to about Tharoor and an IPL scandal, for questioning, sources said.
Sources also said police may soon question Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, Sunanda Pushkar’s son Shiv Menon, her cousin Ashish Dass and her brother Rajesh Pushkar and her cardiologist Rajat Mohan.
Police are also going to quiz Tharoor’s personal assistant and a family friend Sanjay Dewan, who found Pushkar dead at 5.30 pm when he visited her room at Hotel Leela Palace to enquire about her health. Tharoor’s officers on special duty, Shiv Kumar Prasad and Abhinav Kumar, and driver Bajrang will also be questioned.
Delhi Police, which has registered a case of murder in the death of Sunanda Pushkar, is also planning to question Mehr Tarar, the Pakistani journalist over whom she fought with her husband Shashi Tharoor before her mysterious death last year.
A questionnaire is being prepared which will be sent to her via email and replies will be sought, police sources associated with the investigation said today.
Tarar, who had met Congress MP Tharoor sometime before Sunanda’s death, had already said publicly that she is ready to answer all questions in this connection.
Meanwhile, Tharoor’s domestic help Narayan Singh told investigators that the couple had been fighting over another woman besides Tarar days before her death, the sources said.
Usually after such fights, Sunanda used to go to a family friend’s place, who has been identified by Singh as one Sanjay. He has also mentioned about another person Sunil Trakru, said a senior police official associated with the probe.
The sources said police had a month back questioned Trakru, a family friend of the couple, who had met Sunanda on January 15, two days before her death.
They said it was Trakru who had received Sunanda at the airport on January 15 on her return from Thiruvananthapuram and had brought her to Leela Palace hotel where she was found dead on Janaury 17. He had met both Tharoor and Sunanda in the hotel the next day.
Trakru has told police that Sunanda was frail and weak when he last met her.
Singh is believed have told investigators that Sunanda wanted to hold a press conference over something before her death.
The SIT also visited the hotel and spent around two hours.
The investigators questioned the hotel staff and also checked the hotel room once again. The staff was specifically asked whether anyone had seen or recovered any syringe or an injection vial from the room.
The question was made as the medical report had mentioned ‘injury no. 10’, an apparent injection mark through which the poison could have been administered.