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 :
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