The Delhi Police have been asked to “revisit and reinvestigate” the Sunanda Pushkar case following two fresh forensic reports that point to the presence of poison in her viscera and also say that the residue of Alprax tablets found in her was non-fatal.
The Rohini Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) and AIIMS have submitted their reports to the police with a request that the case be re-opened, highly placed police sources told HT on Thursday.
However, senior officers privy to the “informal communication” said both reports were “inconclusive”, “muddled” and “based on conjecture” and that they were yet to take a call on their course of action.
Who's lying on Sunanda autopsy: AIIMS or doc?
The FSL wrote to the police first, around 20 days ago, the sources said. “The communication was mainly based on an analysis of Pushkar’s viscera,” said a senior police officer. “According to FSL, the residue of Alprax tablets found in Pushkar’s viscera was not fatal, leading them to conjecture that her death occurred not due to medical but deliberate poisoning.”
The FSL is also understood to have written to AIIMS, which then conducted its own examination of the viscera and forwarded a 12-page report to the police. AIIMS confirmed it had sent a report to the police but refused to go into details.
{{/usCountry}}The FSL is also understood to have written to AIIMS, which then conducted its own examination of the viscera and forwarded a 12-page report to the police. AIIMS confirmed it had sent a report to the police but refused to go into details.
{{/usCountry}}“The AIIMS report just reiterated the results forwarded to us by FSL. All it said was that Pushkar could not have died of an Alprax overdose,” said an officer, adding, “At the same time, both communications failed to specify the nature of poison that they claimed led to her death.”
Sunanda Pushkar's death: Tharoor demands speedy probe to end speculation
Pushkar, 52, was found dead in her suite at the Leela Palace hotel on January 17, a day after a very public Twitter spat with a Pakistani journalist over the latter’s alleged affair with her husband, former Union minister Shashi Tharoor.
In July, Tharoor had sought a speedy inquiry for a “clear and definitive conclusion” to the death of his wife in the wake of reported claims by a senior forensic doctor at AIIMS that he was pressured to manipulate the autopsy report.