THE 3G LOOT (PART 1) - THE UNKNOWN STORY

I have a BSNL mobile connection. It's highly temperamental. Sometimes, during a call, the voice fades away and the connection breaks. Most times the call does not go through at all. The signal keeps fluctuating for no rhyme or reason. Very frequently, while on the move, I expect the signal to get cut. But it doesn't....

When I checked out with a BSNL lineman on the reasons for my mobile connection's eccentricity, he spread out his hands, expressively. "We just don't have enough towers", he said. "Both 2G and 3G are operating through the same towers. That's why we have so much problems". 

He was only reiterating what I had known all along. I am sure the Indian people would also like to know what is wrong with our national telecom major.

The year : 2008. India was on the threshold of a telecom revolution. Implementation of 2nd generation telephony (2G) was well under way. And the nation was getting ready to usher in 3G technology. The third generation telephony would give access to uninterrupted wireless broadband and internet connectivity, high speed data connections, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services and several other facilities one normally associates with telecommunications in developed countries.

May Day 2008 : Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) unusually issued a tender notification on the national holiday inviting bids for upgrading BSNL's infrastructure to support the proposed 3G network in the country. The mega bid worth Rs 40,000 crore for planning, engineering supply, installations, testing and commissioning of infrastructure for 90 million lines of mobile expansion in six phases was an ambitious project, extremely tempting for all key players in the telecom Industry.

On instructions from the then Telecom Minister, Andimuthu Raja, then CMD of BSNL Kuldeep Goyal, directed all his immediate subordinates to work with the Department of Telecom in rolling out the tender notification process. They issued the tender notification with No /TA/ Cellone/SZ/2008/01 consisting the 145 page document inviting two stages bidding system in four parts. The last date for the bidding was on July 16, 2008. But at 11.30 hours, it announced that the bids would be opened on the same day at 12 noon.

There was nothing abnormal in the tender notification and nobody doubted the genuineness and scope of the business opportunity. BSNL was moving on fast to improve its huge infrastructure and network facilities across the country setting up 60,000 mobile towers for facilitating 3G technology. In south zone comprising five circles Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Chennai Telecom District itself 16,000 mobile towers were required with a total tender value of Rs. 6500 crores.

With the notification of the bid, the stage was set for the new scam.

Meanwhile, an unknown Chennai software company BR Softtech Enterprises Private Limited started its benami operations in the BSNL Infra deal. BR Softtech had been incorporated on December 01, 2007 with its registered office No 6, 30^th street Ganapathy Colony, O-Block, East Anna Nagar, Chennai. It was a letter-pad company promoted by two businessmen MK Bhasker (PAN: AKMPB3198C) and V Ramkumar (PAN AMGPK5102 R). The company was registered at their residential address. After incorporation, the company transacted no business at all. It was waiting for its turn in the telecom scam.

The two were petty businessmen who had the right connections with a political family that mattered.  Bhasker held 9000 shares in the company, while Ramkumar held 1000 shares of Rs10 each making a paid up capital of Rs One lakh. 

According to the minutes of the Board of directors meeting held at the registered office on May 27, 2009 at 10 AM, a decision was taken to rename the company as ICE Televentures Pvt Ltd. The main objects of the Memorandum were altered to “venture into the business of telecommunications, which includes hardware, software and 3G technology and to carry on all types and kinds of services and turnkey infrastructure business in telecom”. This meeting was the first step in the BSNL 3G Infra scam. ICE Televentures then changed its registered office to 11/23 Mannppan Street, Old Washermenpet, Chennai. The Registrar of companies issued a fresh certificate in the of name of the company on June 25, 2009.

Well before BR Softtech or ICE Televentures had come into existence, two other businessmen had registered a real estate company, Desi Holding and Consultants Private limited in 2005 to carry out business in Tamilnadu. They were MRT Ramanujam and MV Damodaran, both known to be close to the same political family. When they formed Desi Holdings, with a paid up capital of Rs One lakh on 2005 November 11, Damodaran did not even have a PAN number. In Desi Holdings, Ramanujam had the major stake with 9900 shares and Damodaran’s stake was only 100 shares worth Rs1000. Like BR Softtech, this letter-pad company in its extra ordinary meeting on  April 16, 2008 decided to change its name to Genext Telecom Pvt Ltd and changed the main objects of its memorandum of Association of the company as “to carry on the business of manufacture and trading of telecom equipment, telecom infrastructure and its maintenance, providing telecom services in India and abroad” and also “to build ports, airports and operate on lease from government”.

Genext Telecom later changed its name once again. On June 10, 2008 Genext Telecom Pvt Ltd was renamed as Ice Telecom India Pvt Ltd  with its registered  office at Ashirwad Apartments, First Floor, # 14/1 First main Road, I Block Anna Nagar East , Chennai.

Interestingly, MV Damodaran, the Director of Ice Telecom India Pvt Ltd, submitted on his company’s letterhead a no objection certificate to the RoC, Chennai stating that Ice Televentures was part of the Ice Telecom group of companies. Such a certificate was necessitated when BR Softtech applied for its change of name. MV Damodaran wrote to Registrar of Companies on 2009 May 25, “We came to know that the name of  BR Softtech Enterprises (P) Ltd  is going to be changed  into Ice Televentures (P) Ltd . As it’s our group of company, we hereby give no objection certificate for the name change of BR Softtech Enterprises (P) Ltd into Ice Televentures (P) Ltd. Even though its name resembles like our name, our business will not be affected”.

This letter, in essence links the two companies.

Since both Ice Telecom and Ice Televentures did not have expertise or required experience to vie for the bid, Minister Raja, who was obviously under instructions to favour them, advised them to enter into partnership with another company which had the required expertise in the telecom sector. The search narrowed down to TVS-Inter-Connect Systems Ltd with registered offices in Bangalore. ICE Telecom India Pvt Ltd, Ice Televentures and TVS–ICS formed a consortium to bid for the BSNL Infra order. In the bid, ICE group’s involvement was never mentioned. Instead, TVS-ICS front-ended.

According to a Business presentation made by TVS–ICS to its global partners, the company won the bid for BSNL Infra tender for the South Zone for Rs 6500 crores and company’s share of 50 per cent of the total tender amounted to Rs 3250 crores. The rest went to its silent partners ICE Group of companies (which together had a paid up capital of a mere Rs 2 lakhs!).  The Business plan was silent on its partners and their role in the BSNL Infra deal.

In June, 2009, BSNL shortlisted Spanco Telesystems & Solutions, TVS Interconnect Systems and Acme Tele Power for executing the BSNL 3G infrastructure contract. Spanco was the lowest bidder for the west zone, TVS-ICS for the south zone  and Acme for  the North and East for the passive cellular infrastructure contract.

From June 2009 onward, the Ice Group started looking for global partnerships as they had neither money nor capacity to execute the mega deal. When the bid was made, TVS–ICS was not keen on providing the infrastructure to BSNL. Their role was of a front ending company, pocketing a 4 to 5 per cent commission from the deal.

Soon after winning the deal, the Ice group of companies started scouting for global partnership. But they miserably failed in their attempts. By mid-July of 2009, global Telecom players started smelling a scam in Indian telecom deals. Many Embassies warned their leading companies that the Indian game was an unsure bet and cautioned them against deals with their Indian partners. So the consortium decided to appoint an investment consultant for identifying investors for the project. 

On August 27, 2009, Ice Televentures appointed one Sanjiv Kumar Dwivedi, the CEO of Ubiqui Softech Ltd as its investment consultant. His role was to identify and line up global investors for the BSNL Infra deal and bring money for their project. Dwivedi was offered 1.5 per cent syndication charges for the amount arranged or structured.

What was Dwiwedi's role? Under whose instructions did Raja favour rank outsiders like the Ice Group to execute a mega project? What ultimately happened to the 3G infrastructure? These are questions that will be addressed in the next post in a few days from now. 

So keep watching....

THE ECONOMIC RAPE OF INDIA -- THE BROTHERS MARAN

Dayanidhi Maran’s million-dollar smile is all set to be wiped out. The noose is slowly tightening round his neck. And in days or weeks, like his “aunt” Kanimozhi, he is likely to enjoy the hospitality of Tihar Jail in Delhi, courtesy the CBI. Whether his elder brother and Sun TV’s top honcho, Kalanidhi Maran will keep him company, we’ll have to wait and see. For the misdemeanour under inquiry has been jointly perpetrated by them. The fact that Dayanidhi was a Union Minister at that time, and had blatantly misused that position for business gains, makes things slightly more difficult for him to wriggle out.

The first stone against the younger of the Maran brothers was cast late last night (January 21^st, 2015) when S Kannan, Chief Technical Officer in elder brother Kalanidhi’s Sun TV, K S Ravi, an electrician and V Gowthaman, the Additional Private Secretary to Dayanidhi during his Union Telecom Minister tenure, were picked up in Chennai. The CBI said the three had been arrested to collect crucial evidence which may come up during their custodial interrogation.

If the CBI is really keen to get at the truth (and there is no reason at this juncture to suspect otherwise), they are sure to employ a variety of tactics on the trio, which will make them sing. And if they sing, it’s going to be the hot seat for the brothers Maran.

The evidence hoped to be collected relates to the year 2006-2007, when Dayanidhi is reported to have used his position as Union Telecom Minister to set up a 323-lines mini telephone exchange in his house on the posh Boat Club Road in Central Chennai, to transfer data for and on behalf of his elder brother Kalanidhi’s satellite TV network. According to a secret report prepared by the CBI as early as in September, 2007, the quantum of data transmitted through this illicit link was so huge that it had caused a loss to the nation of a whopping Rs 440 crores.

Of the 323  ISDN lines, which are used for mass transfer of data, voice and video, 23 lines were provided with Basic Rate Access facilities, which would facilitate communicating one socket to three channels. This can be used for transmission of signalling information. According to the CBI report, 48,72,027 units of calls had emanated from one telephone number --  24371515 --  in the month of March, 2007 alone.

Extrapolating this to 323 lines for a 4 month period when the lines were operative – we have an astounding consumption of 630 crore call units. At a rate of 0.70 rupee per call, this works out to a staggering Rs 440 crores.

Though this is peanuts when compared to the Rs 1,76,000 Crores loss caused by Dayanidhi’s successor in the Telecom Ministry, Andimuthu Raja, the audacity with which it was executed and the sheer arrogance of power that motivated it makes it the equivalent of an economic rape of the nation! Dayanidhi’s audacity at that time was such that he could threaten a Ratan Tata to part with a third of Tata DTH shares. He could also threaten the powerful head of the Tata empire not to reveal that he had threatened him! Further, he could strangulate street-fighter entrepreneur C Sivasankaran to sell Aircel, a telecom company promoted by him, to a Malaysia-based industrialist T Anandakrishnan, who in turn was coerced into gifting brother Kalanidhi with a Rs 800 crores DTH platform as an obvious quid-pro-quo!

With Dayanidhi’s grand uncle M Karunanidhi then presiding over Tamilnadu as Chief Minister and virtually dictating terms to a lame-duck UPA Government at the Centre headed by Manmohan Singh, Maran’s misdemeanours were kept under the wraps. Only when relations between the Congress and the DMK began to sour did the CBI muster the courage to commence a preliminary inquiry. A report was filed in 2011. Since then, with frequent prodding from the Supreme Court, the case has inched slowly forward.

The findings as of date indicate that Kalanidhi’s Sun TV had used the illegal telephone exchange to transmit news-related footages, video files and data to various countries and vice versa at the tax payers account. In the process, the TV network is reported to have saved as much as Rs 1300 crores.

But a closer look will indicate that this argument is flawed. The total turnover of the Sun TV group for 2006-07 was Rs 678 crores. When this was so, surely, Rs 1,300 crores cannot be a presumptive expenditure (or potential saving) under a single head namely, data transmission. Something is seriously amiss.

Sources within the BSNL confess that no information was available with them about the numbers assigned to the Dayanidhi Maran exchange. The details were neither with the computer cell nor with Public Grievances cell. The implication is that these 323 numbers had been kept out of the exchange system itself and hence was not known even to the telephone department.

But pray why?

Obviously, the idea was not only to deny the existence of the lines, when push came to shove, but to suppress its existence to everyone including the telephone department. These lines obviously could not have been used by Sun TV to send their programs and data. The mathematics simply does not add up. Surely such subterfuge gives clue to a different dimension altogether.

The arrest of three persons in connection with the illegal telephone exchange and transfer of data case is the first step. What has come out into the public domain is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A lot more skeletons will tumble out. It will be interesting to see what the CBI manages to unearth.

Meanwhile, here are some credible speculations based on my own long years in the media:

I have been part of the media industry for over three decades. Of this almost two decades have been in the electronic media. A decade and a half of this has been as the head of the News wing of a prominent Tamil satellite TV network. And I know, for a fact, that there is very little possibility or necessity for transferring data to or from a TV channel to any destination in the world to the tune of Rs 440 crores over four months. Then what could be the nature of data said to have been transmitted by the Maran brothers?

Could the telephone exchange have been used for some other more sinister purposes than made out? Was something bigger and better getting transmitted through these telephone lines?

Could the Marans have been using this exchange for eavesdropping on some of India's most powerful and influential? After all, in today’s world, knowledge is power.

Is that why the CBI was reluctant to act despite being in the know for the past five years? Is that why the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh was hesitant to act on this matter?

Before anyone dismisses this as a figment of my imagination, let us not forget that in this day of advanced communication technology, eavesdropping is easy, especially if one has a telephone exchange at one’s own residence connected to 323 ISDN lines. Again who can ignore the allegation levelled by the Central Board of Direct Taxation that the offices of the then Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee were monitored through spying devices, which had been pasted in as many as 11 places in his room using adhesives and later been pulled out. The Intelligence Bureau which looked into this allegation at the behest of the Prime Minister, covered up with the unconvincing claim that what was found in the Finance Minister’s was not planted adhesives but chewing gum!

Surely my speculations are no more far-fetched than this.

Can someone come up with a better explanation? 

THE CASE OF THE RECKLESS ROMEO - PART 2

In Part 1 of this story, I had dealt at length with the courtship and marriage of Sunanda Pushkar and Shashi Tharoor, which ended in her death under mysterious circumstances. Let us now delve deeper...

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has levelled damaging charges against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. He said, 'Tharoor is now a material witness. If he tells the truth he will not be made an accused, otherwise he will become an accused. I would urge him to tell the whole truth. The whole truth is that she was murdered by being administered poison. The room was prepared for the murder, Tharoor knows about it and tampered with evidence. Sunanda Pushkar had said she would expose the IPL deals. Tharoor is protecting somebody who actually was the person who would have lost a lot if Sunanda would have addressed a press conference.'

Which brings us to Sunanda and Shashi’s IPL connect, which dates back to their courtship days.

Shashi Tharoor was the public face of Cochin’s bid to win one of two IPL franchises created for the 2011 season. He described himself as a “mentor” in Cochin’s bid, in his role as a member of parliament from nearby Thiruvananthapuram. Against expectations, a consortium called Rendezvous Sports World Pvt Ltd won the auction with the highest bid, to secure the IPL franchise to promote Kochi Tuskers-Kerala in what is unquestionably one of the world’s most lucrative sporting tournaments.

However, the success turned sour when it was disclosed that Tharoor’s girlfriend, Sunanda Pushkar, was a member of the consortium. The diplomat-turned-politician was accused of benefiting personally from the deal and of failing to declare an interest.

The issue came out into the open  when the IPL Kochi team franchisee was issued an ultimatum by BCCI to clarify over the alleged 25 per cent stake sale of the team to "unknown buyers". The minister's name was dragged in when the then Chairman and Commissioner of the Indian Premium League, Lalit Modi revealed the names of some of the owners of the consortium that bought the franchisee (including Sunanda Pushkar). He also alleged that Tharoor had asked him to not to ask who the shareholders were.

Shashi Tharoor retaliated with a press statement which read, "A consortium led by Rendezvous was set up to bid for an IPL team. They approached me for help and guidance. I steered them towards Kerala. Rendezvous includes a number of people, including many I have never met, and Sunanda Pushkar, whom I know well. My role in mentoring the consortium included several conversations with Mr Lalit Modi, who guided us through the process and presented himself as a trusted friend." Besides trying to clear off his name from the controversy, the Congress minister alleged that "Lalit Modi and others had pressurised the consortium members to abandon their bid in favour of another city in a different state."

Accusing Lalit Modi of waging a campaign to “besmirch” the Cochin bid, Tharoor said : “I have neither invested nor received even a rupee for my mentorship of the team. Whatever my personal relationships with any of the consortium members, I do not intend to benefit in any way financially from my association with the team now or at a later stage.” He complained about reports relating to his girlfriend : “Our media cannot accept an attractive woman as a serious business professional. She has worked in brand management and her stake in the consortium had been given to her as sweat equity.”

The controversy cost Tharoor his job as a junior minister in the UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh. On September 19, 2011, the franchise of Kochi Tuskers-Kerala was terminated by the BCCI due to a breach in their contract terms, because they failed to provide a bank guarantee to cover their annual fee. According to IPL sources, substantial funding for Kochi Tuskers had been put in anonymously by Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, Robert Vadra using Tharoor as the conduit. When the franchise was terminated, Vadra is believed to have asked Tharoor for his money back and Tharoor is reported to have pleaded helplessness in the matter. This had led to considerable unpleasantness between the two.

Days before her death, Sunanda Pushkar had used the Twitter route to make known to the world her apprehensions about her husband’s developing closeness to Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar.

In a report published in The Economic Times, Pushkar was quoted as confirming that she had sent out the tweets. One of the tweets read: “Our accounts have not been hacked and I have been sending out these tweets. I cannot tolerate this (the closeness of Mehr Tarar and Shashi Tharoor??). This is a Pakistani woman who is an ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) agent, and she is stalking my husband. And you know how men are. He is flattered by the attention. I took upon myself the crimes of this man during IPL (Indian Premier League). I will not allow this to be done to me. I just can’t tolerate this. I have nothing more to say.”

The indication is that during the Kochi Tuskers misadventure, Shashi Tharoor had indulged in  misdemeanours, which she had covered up. After having stood up to him in those times, she was not prepared to accept the Reckless Romeo's philandering ways with the Pakistani journalist.

Sunanda had called anchor Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today hours before her death and invited him over for a chat about the "other side of IPL". Similarly, she had also reached out to a senior Opposition politician and fixed up a meeting for the following week to tell him all about the IPL. She had also called up journalists Burkha Dutt and Nalini Singh. But none of these meetings happened because Sunanda died within hours of making these calls.

There are no eyewitnesses to her last living moments. So naturally, police investigations have to be based on circumstantial evidences and medical reports.The manner in which the initial investigations were done give an impression that someone with high connections wanted to close the case fast. The rules framed by the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi were flouted while constituting the autopsy panel. Instead of having three experts from three different institutions to do the post mortem, all the three members of the autopsy panel headed by Sudhir Kumar Gupta, professor and head of department forensic medicine -- Adarsh Kumar, assistant professor, and Shashank Pooniya, senior resident-- were from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The police were comfortable with the conclusion given out that Sunanda’s death could be suicide or accidental due to drug overdose.

But then skeletons started tumbling out. First there was the volte face by the autopsy panel head, Dr Sudhir Kumar Gupta, who alleged pressure from “higher ups”.

Thereafter, questions started being asked. And with the change of guard at the Centre, the pressure on the investigators has eased. There is now enough circumstantial evidence to negate the possibility that Pushkar’s death was due to suicide or even a drug overdose. And with the police registering “murder” as the cause of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor’s death in the FIR filed rather belatedly on January 6, 2015, the line of inquiry is getting clearer.

The questions that are being asked are these :

·        What was Sunanda Pushkar intent upon confiding to several journalists and a senior politician hours before her death?

·        Was she done away because someone feared the consequences of her clearing her conscience?

·        Were her mobile calls being monitored? And, if so, by whom?

·        After ostensibly reaching a happy compromise in their personal relationship, why did husband Shashi Tharoor keep away from his wife till he came back to discover her dead body? Was he genuinely busy or was he keeping away on someone’s instructions?

·        With Sunanda’s personal doctors in Kerala denying that she was on any form of medication, were the strips of Alprax found in her room red herrings to veer the police and forensic experts to suicide or drug overdose?

·        How could the investigators have overlooked dead give-aways like tell-tale urine stains on bed linen and room carpet and a broken glass on the hotel table?

·        Current forensic evidence point to the fact that Sunanda was pinned down to her bed by atleast two burly men, while a third injected a poison into her. According to one of the doctors who did the autopsy, the prick marks on her hands are many, indicating that the murderer was inexpertly trying to locate a vein before plunging the syringe.

·        Could Sunanda’s murder be related to the IPL or to links in Dubai (where both she and Tharoor lived for a while), and the underworld there which controls illegal betting and match fixing in cricket?

·        Did she knew too much about the murky side of the IPL and threatened to expose those involved?

The questions are many. The answers, at the moment are few. But truth will come out one day. And the truth could be embarrassingly uncomfortable for many.

For another perspective of this murder mystery, you may also read :

http://t.co/TSxIiSw2Ka

THIRD EYE: THE CASE OF THE RECKLESS ROMEO

THIRD EYE: THE CASE OF THE RECKLESS ROMEO: Perry Mason novels were a childhood favourite. The intriguing cases, the beautiful defendants, the painstaking investigations, and finally...

THE CASE OF THE RECKLESS ROMEO

Perry Mason novels were a childhood favourite. The intriguing cases, the beautiful defendants, the painstaking investigations, and finally the courtroom drama in which Mason dramatically turns the tables on the prosecution to secure the release of his client... They have all the ingredients of a pot-boiler. No wonder many a Perry Mason novel by his creator Erle Stanley Gardner ended up as absorbing TV plays. Many thrillers by other authors, featuring Perry Mason as the central character, also made it to the screens. One such story was The Case of the Reckless Romeo, 

telecast in the US in 1992.

The story bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Sunanda Pushkar case, which I am about to narrate. But then, the title could fit her husband Shashi Tharoor like a glove. And so I have used it here. 

Let us take a quick peek.

He : Born in 1956. Handsome. Suave. Flamboyant. Educated. A man of letters, who began writing with a regular column on Foreign Affairs in THE ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY OF INDIA. Rich. A junior minister in the Congress-led UPA government after a successful career in India’s foreign service. Twice married and twice divorced, with a roving eye for beauty. Snotty. Condescending and snobbish to the extent of publicly proclaiming that flying in the Economy section was “cattle class”...  

She : Born in 1962. Glamorous. Glitzy. Rich. Ambitious. A social climber using her undeniable charm to penetrate elitist fortresses. Twice married and twice divorced. All ready for a third engagement with matrimony, provided the terms were right...

When they met, they felt they were made for each other. A dream, year-long courtship, almost entirely before media flashlights, ended in their marriage in 2010. Sunanda Pushkar became Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor.

Theirs was a dream alliance.

Man and Wife were inseparable. Like Mary's little lamb, wherever Sunanda went, Shashi went. He hardly ever left her alone. They could often be spotted walking hand in hand or Sunanda possessively caressing Shashi’s hair or unabashedly pecking him on the cheek. His friends admired these juvenile demonstrations. And his critics chided him by saying Shashi Tharoor ought to have been made the minister of ‘love affairs’.

The couple’s idyllic world, however, turned sour and on January 17, 2014, Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a suite in the Leela Palace Hotel in Delhi under mysterious circumstances. 

A few months earlier, reports had surfaced that the Shashi-Sunanda marriage was heading towards disaster after Mehr Tarar, a beautiful Pakistani journalist, whom Sunanda termed an ISI agent, entered Tharoor’s life. Domestic helps and close friends talked about frequent verbal and sometimes physical spats between Shashi and Sunanada on Mehr Tarar's account. In fact, even though the couple had flown in together to Delhi a day before her death, they had bitterly fought over Tarar on the flight (Sunanda had even locked herself into the flight toilet, much to the amusement and chagrin of fellow travellers) and later in the airport. As a result they had chosen not to go to their plush Lodhi Estate home. They had instead come to Leela Palace separately and checked into separate rooms. After hours of confabulations, which involved some common friends, the couple finally put out a joint statement to scotch rumours that their marriage was on the rocks. They claimed that all differences had been resolved and they were again “happily married”. Thereafter, they shifted jointly to Suite number 345.

During the rest of their stay, Shashi Tharoor kept himself out of her hair by “busying” himself with party affairs, while Sunanda was left pretty much to herself with a domestic help, Narayan Singh, at hand to attend to personal needs.

On the fateful day, Tharoor returned at around 8 PM from an AICC meeting, only to find his wife lying dead in their hotel room. More than an hour later, he informed the Delhi police about his wife’s death. The police recovered the body from the hotel and sent it for autopsy. According to initial reports, Sunanda was suspected to have committed suicide. Later reports stated that the cause of death was “unnatural”. Dr Adarsh Kumar, who was part of the AIIMS team that conducted the post mortem, told the media that Sunanda’s arms had injury marks that appeared to have been caused by a “blunt instrument. Sources added that there was a bite mark on the left hand and several blue coloured contusions on her right hand, which could not have been self-inflicted. Yet the doctors, in all their wisdom, said these injuries may or may not be the cause of death. The autopsy report indicated that she died of drug overdose, most likely a combination of sedatives, other strong medicines and probably alcohol. Strips of Alprax, an anti-depressant, was found in her purse as well as in the room. This led the investigators to suspect that a suicidal overdose of this could have led to her death.

In a statement to investigators, Shashi Tharoor said : "Our married life was very happy and some misunderstanding which was there was cleared and she was happy about it." He also revealed that his wife was "a very happy personality" but was very ill after two surgeries. She was dependent on Alprax tablets to sleep, he said. Days before her death, Pushkar had been admitted to a hospital in Kerala for suspected lupus. Tharoor said she was discharged on January 14,  2014, after which they came to Delhi. In his statement to the magistrate, Tharoor claimed he had gone to Jaipur that day, and had come back to the hotel at 8 PM.  

"I decided to wake up Sunanda at 8.30 PM. I entered the bedroom of the suite asking 'darling how are you feeling,' there was no reply. I placed my hand on her forehead to check for fever and found it very cold. Her hands were stiff. I immediately called the doctors and the hotel management. But it was already too late."

Doctors at Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences in Trivandrum, who had examined her a few days earlier however claimed that Sunanda did not have any serious health problems, thereby raising serious doubts about the truthfulness of Tharoor’s claims. 

On 1 July 2014, the controversy over her death deepened when AIIMS doctor Sudhir Gupta, who headed the team that conducted the post mortem on Sunanda’s body claimed that he was pressured "by top officials" to submit a false report in the case to the effect that Sunanda died a "natural death". He claimed that he was being targeted because he did not bow to the pressure and gave a report stating that Sunanda's death was caused by drug poisoning that could be either suicidal or homicidal. Dr Gupta claimed he was prevented from telling the truth in his report due to Shashi Tharoor and Ghulam Nabi Azad's influence. In order to prove that the autopsy report was influenced, Dr Gupta has also submitted details of emails exchanged between the AIIMS director and Tharoor, thereby implying that the “top official” he had referred to was the Director himself.

Shashi Tharoor, however, maintained that he has, since the beginning, not created any obstacle in the investigation process. He said that he was cooperating fully with the police fulfilling all the formalities that are required by the investigation authorities.

On October 10, 2014 the medical team probing Sunanda’s death concluded that she had died of poisoning. On November 10, the hotel room, where she was found dead and which had been locked under the seal of the Delhi Police, was re-examined by police and forensic experts. Police officials claimed that during this examination, they had stumbled upon fluid marks on the bed and the carpet and a broken glass in suite number 345 of Leela Palace hotel. How such tell-tale evidences could have been ignored in the first place is not clear and would definitely weaken the police case when it comes before a court for trial.

Forensic experts inform that the stains on the bed linen and carpet had been caused by urine. These coupled with the injuries on Sunanda’s body and some tell-tale prick-marks on her hands indicate a violent struggle and forced injection of a poison. The viscera report that was filed recently also indicated the presence of a rare poison forcing the forensic authorities to send viscera samples to Scotland Yard for a detailed analysis to identify the specific poison.

On January 6, 2015 Delhi Police reported that Sunanda was murdered and filed an FIR in the regard. 

Less than a week later, maverick politician and senior BJP leader Subramanium Swamy claimed that she had been administered a Russian poison which was unknown to Indian forensic experts. He stated that Sunanda's husband Tharoor was a part of the murder conspiracy. Adding to the string of accusations against Tharoor, Swamy challenged him to reveal the identity of the 'killers' to the police.The BJP leader also accused Tharoor of trying to cover up his wife's murder as a natural death. Giving a totally new twist to the sordid story, Swamy claimed that Sunanda had been put to death as she had wanted to tell the truth about some dubious dealings in the IPL. "Priyanka Gandhi’s husband, Robert Vadra's name would also have surfaced," he said.

Suddenly the case assumed new dimensions. What was once believed to be a straight forward suicide by the wife of a reckless Romeo has become a cause célèbre with political and financial ramifications. Which leads us to the questions : What was Sunanda’s Pushkar’s connection with IPL cricket? What was the damaging information she could have made public?  Who wanted to suppress the information so desperately as to warrant silencing her on a permanent basis? And in what way could Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law be linked to the whole sordid drama?

I shall go into these issues in my next post.