Doctors said preliminary results from a post-mortem examination concluded that Sunanda Pushkar’s death was “unnatural” but more tests would be needed to determine the cause.
The Indian junior minister’s wife, who was found dead in a luxury hotel after exposing her husband’s alleged infidelity, suffered an “unnatural, sudden death”, according to a preliminary report.
The body of the 52-year-old was discovered by Shashi Tharoor, the federal human resources minister, after he returned to the Leela Palace hotel from a meeting on Friday January 17th 2014.
Tharoor, 57, had earlier been reported to have been taken to hospital suffering chest pains, but was in a stable condition.
Pushkar’s death came after a series of messages appeared on the Twitter account of Tharoor, a former UN diplomat, novelist and government spokesman.
The messages showed intimate exchanges purportedly between Tharoor (@shashitharoor) and Mehr Tarar (@mehrtarar), the Pakistani journalist, in which she professed her love for him and he said his wife had discovered their relationship.
Tharoor said his Twitter account had been “hacked”. However, Pushkar later said she had published the messages after reading converstations between her husband and Tarar.
Pushkar later retracted her statement and, seeking to draw a line under the scandal, Tharoor issued a joint statement on Thursday in which he blamed unauthorised tweets and distorted media reports for the “unseemly controversy”.
The statement said the couple, who married in August 2010, were “happily married and intend to remain that way”.
Pushkar’s body was later found in the hotel room the couple were sharing while their house was being renovated.
