The Delhi Police probing Sunanda Puskhar’s death may record the statement of Pakistani journalist Mehr
Tarar if they find that her alleged relationship with Union minister Shashi Tharoor led to Pushkar’s death. Police said Tarar’s statement would be important only if the probe pointed to suicide.
Pushkar’s family in Jammu has demanded a CBI probe into her sudden death.
A senior investigating official said that if it is a case of suicide then the police has to record Tarar’s statement and for that they would have to go through the ministry of external affair. In this regard, the crime branch sleuths are examining the call records of Pushkar’s mobile phone as well as BBM messages exchanged between her and her friends.
A day before her death, Pushkar in her tweets had accused Tarar of “stalking” her husband and trying to “break” her marriage when she was away for medical treatment.
“If the probe establishes that Pushkar was distraught and depressed over the alleged affair which led to the suicide, then there is enough ground to make a case of abetment. It is only then that we will need to record Tarar’s statement and will seek the help of the external affairs ministry.”
Meanwhile, Mehr Tarar has claimed that she had no role in his Pushkars’ marital discord and she herself was a “victim of conspiracy”.
In an interview to a Pakistani news channel, she said “I do not know why she had a problem with me talking to her husband over phone or email. The conversation I had with him is something that I can talk with anyone and anywhere in the world.”
Tarar, who has changed her profile picture on Twitter to a burning candle following Pushkar’s death on Friday, said she met Tharoor twice — once in India in April and then in Dubai in June last year.
“There were a lot of people present there,” the 45-year-old Lahore-based journalist told a TV channel on Saturday night.
“When I wrote an article that mentioned him, his wife probably did not like that another woman whom she did not know praising him so much. So she asked him to stop talking to me. Despite that he (Tharoor) kept following me on Twitter after which she asked him to stop following me (Tarar) on Twitter.”
Tarar, mother of a 13-year-old boy, then surprisingly went on an all out attack on Pushkar.
“Have you googled? You will find that problems emerged in their marriage sometime in May or June. I was not involved in their lives. At that time, she did not know me nor was she blaming me for anything.
“Google their names and you will see what appears. ‘Marriage is about to break’. ‘Trouble in paradise’. ‘Fairytale is over’. News have been appearing about their marriage for long”.
She said Pushkar first attacked her after an interview she did with Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah. “She (Pushkar) tweeted saying why has our CM spoken to a Pakistani journalist. First Pakistan sends Army and then journalists. She started fighting with me,” Tarar said maintaining that she was a “victim of conspiracy”.
“A Pakistani woman sitting here cannot spoil their marriage,” she said.
Tarar alleged Pushkar always had some to bother about. “She used to get upset and come on Twitter. She has not been well for a long time. Some Indian Union minister also said she was seriously ill. Her husband and his office have said that she was on medication for the last three days.
“She was not eating. She was smoking too much... She also had stomach TB. This is not what I am saying but what has appeared in Indian media. If she fought with her husband and later her health got affected, how am I involved in the entire case,” Tarar wondered.
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