‘I have no desire to live’: Sunanda Pushkar’s mail and messages taken as a dying declaration, Police tell court

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has been charged with abetment to suicide in wife Sunanda Pushkar case. Delhi Police told court her messages on social media have been taken as a “dying declaration.”

“I have no desire to live...all I pray for is death,” Sunanda Pushkar wrote in an e-mail to her husband Shashi Tharoor nine days before she was found dead in a luxury hotel room in Delhi, police told a court on Monday.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a south Delhi hotel in January 17, 2014. (HT file photo)

Sunanda’s mail and messages on social media have been taken as a “dying declaration”, Delhi Police told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal, who reserved for June 5 its order on whether to summon Tharoor as an accused in the case.

The Delhi police also told the court that Sunanda’s death was due to poisoning and 27 tablets of Alprax were found in her room but it was not clear how many pills she had consumed.

The Delhi Police had on May 14 accused the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, of abetting Pushkar’s suicide and urged the court that he should be summoned as an accused in the four-and-half year-old case, claiming there was sufficient evidence against him.

In a nearly 3,000-page charge sheet, the police has named Tharoor as the only accused while also alleging that he had subjected his wife to cruelty.

Pushkar was found dead in the suite of a luxury hotel in south Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014.

The Congress leader has been charged under sections 498 A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.

Under section 498A, the maximum punishment is up to three years of imprisonment, while jail term up to 10 years is prescribed under section 306.

The suite of the South Delhi hotel, where Pushkar had died, was sealed by the police on the night of her death for investigation. An FIR was registered by Delhi Police on January 1, 2015 against unknown persons under IPC section 302 (murder).

According to prosecution sources, the charge sheet has mentioned that Pushkar was allegedly subjected to mental as well as physical cruelty. Tharoor has not been arrested in the case.

The special investigation team (SIT) on April 20 had told the apex court that a draft final report has been prepared after conducting “thorough professional and scientific investigations” in the case relating to the death of Congress MP’s wife.