Indian minister’s wife suffered ‘unnatural’ death

The Indian human resources minister Shashi Tharoor sits in an ambulance alongside the body of his wife, Sunanda Pushkar, after the post-mortem in New Delhi on Saturday. Money Sharma / EPA

NEW DELHI // The wife of Indian minister Shashi Tharoor, found dead in a luxury hotel after accusing her husband of being unfaithful, suffered an “unnatural, sudden death”, a doctor who performed an autopsy on her body said on Saturday.

“More tests” are needed to determine the cause of Sunanda Pushkar’s death and the final results will not be known for two to three days, said Sudhir Gupta, one of three doctors who performed the autopsy.

He added Pushkar’s body had “some physical injuries”, but it was unclear whether they were related to her death.

The body was expected to be cremated later in the day, local media reports said.

Mr Tharoor found his wife dead in a luxury hotel room on Friday, just two days after she accused him on Twitter and in other media of having an affair with a Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar.

“There were no signs of any foul play,” said Mr Tharoor’s press assistant, Abhinav Kumar. “She seemed to be sleeping in a normal way but later it was found she was dead.”

Mr Tharoor was admitted on Saturday to the same top government hospital where the autopsy was performed on his wife’s body after complaining of “general chest discomfort”, a hospital spokeswoman told reporters.

But his test results were normal and he was released. TV footage showed him leaving the hospital looking ashen.

Pushkar, 52, a Dubai-based entrepreneur before marrying Mr Tharoor in 2010, had been taking medications for various illnesses, including tuberculosis, according to local media.

In one of her last tweets, which later appeared to have been removed, she wrote: “Whatever is destined to happen will happen, will go smiling.”

Indian social media users called it the first “death by Twitter”, with the drama being played out over the microblogging site.

The death of Pushkar, described by friends as the “life of any party”, sent shock waves through New Delhi’s social set.

The couple appeared deeply in love when they wed and were a glamorous pair on the social scene but the rumour mill had been abuzz for months with talk of marital problems.

* Agence France-Presse