Je Suis Sunanda Pushkar, writes Nina Pillai

The terror attack in Paris resulting in the brutal killing of the editor, cartoonist and 10 others, injuring many others at the Charlie Hebdo office followed by a massive man hunt is tragic in extreme. It shows how vulnerable we all are in life. Je Suis Charlie 'I am Charlie' showing solidarity and support for the brave reporters who died is trending. My heart goes out to the families of those who lost loved ones in the attack.

Closer to home the pre Lohri chill that grips Delhi has in great part to do with winter. The chill that sends shivers down our spines though, is the cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder of Sunanda Pushkar. Each day brings more gruesome tidings, she had 15 injury marks on her body, a bite mark, an injection site, poison in her system that could be pulonium - that she was in perfect health but died. From the time the FIR was filed as homicide I have been rivetted by the coverage. Strangely from the day she was murdered I suspected foul play, as a massive cover up of facts was juxtaposed with a hurried cremation and the sad truth of Sunanda's end got interred with her bones. I was at a hospital a couple of days later and a well-known surgeon told me that even 10 times the amount of Alparax she was supposed to have consumed would not kill a person. He also said if it was a normal case her husband would have been arrested. As her distress on television was cause enough, the extra marital affair and the IPL scam to arrest her husband as it was a death within the seven years that the law laid down. But he was a Minister so it would take a thorough investigation which he doubted would happen.This week with the filing of the FIR the wheels of justice have started to roll.

I have known Shashi Tharoor for over three decades. His first wife Tilothama and he used to visit with us quite regularly in the early '80s in Singapore. We visited them at their home in Geneva in the late '80s and were delighted to meet their twin sons. Almost a decade later I had dinner with him in New York along with my friend Rajesh Shah.

When Shashi released his historical tome in New Delhi my friend Anita Pratap, Prasanna Rajan and I went to the event. So over the years I had met Shashi and thought of him as smart and ambitious, with a penchant for glib flirtation.

Post his marriage to Sunanda, I met them at dinner at a friend's place and during the course of the evening, teasingly said though he had not invited me for his marriage to Sunanda I would surely come to his next. Bold words on hindsight but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that Sunanda would meet her end in such a startling way, shocking the nation with the visuals of her demise.The whispers of murder most foul started almost immediately, a friend who saw her postmortem, told a common friend her hand was completely blue, when I said that's poison she clarified that it was due to the air conditioning.Strange explanation as then she should have been blue all over, hotels are centrally air-conditioned more curious was the fact that it was in January when Delhi is at its coldest.

Somehow that personal bit of information combined with the news anchors who she had called in the dead of night the day of her murder, her interview to a channel where she seemed distraught about her husband's affair and promised to disclose all, including the IPL scam in a free-wheeling press conference, her twitter war with Tarar, the other woman - all told the story of a woman who was beside herself with pain and anguish. This was no wilting wall flower, this was a lady who was going to take on the might of the nation, a born fighter. The very next day she was silenced. When Rajan was killed the first news alluded to suicide by pills but I was with him near his end, so that story died a natural death.

The reality is that there was nothing natural to either murders. Fabricated stories by vested interests found their way quickly to the media, suicide, grave illness, confused mental state, but these were not ordinary mortals they were Gladiators in the arena of life who fought for all they held dear, all the time.

In Sunanda's case it was love at first sight when she met Tharoor. Their PDAs were the talk-of-the-town. She was bubbly, fun, made friends quickly and had an uncanny ability to bond on first meeting. I didn't know her personally, but had met her socially on many a occasion, I remember getting on a flight August 2011 and meeting a friend who had just met Sunanda the night before and partied with her till she boarded the flight - they instantly became friends. Such was her friendly nature, there are many stories about both Sunanda and Shashi in their past, but in my opinion they matter little as the past is exactly that and their union started a new chapter in their lives till her gruesome end. The SIT is not equipped to handle this case as it has international ramifications and involves powerful people, the CBI under the aegis of the Supreme Court would be my humble suggestion, having travelled the road of tardy litigation in our nation this can be the only way forward. Let's take a look as to why?

Newspaper reports and declarations of wealth showed a vast fortune in Sunanda's name, who benefitted from her death? That is motive to me! The other woman Tarar was accused by Sunanda of being an ISI spy, only the CBI can ascertain that. Unknown men from Dubai checking into the hotel and out with dodgy documents again domain of the CBI. The use of a toxin not available in India, again we need the CBI. Finally, the connections with powerful people and the shenanigans related to the IPL can only be investigated by the CBI as only they can through Interpol get pooled resources to bring this case to its logical conclusion. Finally, if this murder is not investigated and its perpetrators brought to justice all the women of our country could easily face the same fate one dark night with no one to question the powers that be, that's why I fought so hard for Rajan to get justice and why I say today Je Suis Sunanda...