After marital row, Sunanda Pushkar found dead

Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Minister of State Shashi Tharoor, was found dead in a luxury hotel here Friday night, just a day after they claimed they were "happily married" despite an ugly public row.

Police sources told IANS that Pushkar, who married Tharoor in August 2010, was found sprawled on a bed in room 345 at The Leela Palace hotel in south Delhi. 

She had reportedly checked into the hotel Thursday night.

On Thursday, Tharoor and Pushkar issued a joint statement saying they were distressed by an "unseemly controversy" over some "unauthorized tweets" posted from their Twitter accounts and that both were "happily married and intend to remain that way".

The statement claimed that "distorted accounts" of comments "allegedly made by Sunanda", alleging an affair between her husband and a Pakistani journalist, had "led to some erroneous conclusions".

"We wish to stress that we are happily married and intend to remain that way."

A Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, it was Thaoor's third marriage to Pushakar and her second.

A scandal erupted Wednesday after tweets posted on Tharoor's account reportedly spoke of his love to the Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar, who denied she was having an affair with the Indian minister.

Pushkar initially threatened to divorce Tharoor, who then tweeted that his twitter account had been hacked and would be offline for sometime.

But a furious Pushkar told a newspaper that Mehr could be a Pakistani spy and that she was stalking Thaoor. "And you know how men are. He is flattered by the attention."

"I will not allow this to be done to me. I just can't tolerate this. I have nothing more to say," she told the Economic Times. 

Tarar threatened to file a defamation suit against Pushkar for calling her a Pakistani intelligence agent. 

She also trashed Pushkar, saying her conduct was "nauseous".

Minister's Private Secretary Abinav Kumar told reporters that Tharoor and Pushkar were staying in a hotel suite since yesterday as some painting work was on at home. The Minister was away throughout the day attending the AICC.

When he came back around 8:30 PM, he found the door of her suite locked from the inside. "She seemed to be sleeping in a normal way but later it was found she was dead," he said.

Kumar said there was "no sign of foul play" but whether it was natural death or not cannot be said now.

"The cause of death and the time of death, we cannot say now," he said.

This was the third marriage for both of them. She had a 21-year-old son, Shiv Menon, from her second marriage.

The couple, who were always in some sort of controversy or the other, reportedly fought over the alleged affair which came to light when Tharoor claimed his twitter handle was hacked.

He made the declaration after purported controversial tweets were posted from his accounts and were believed to be addressed to the Pakistan-based journalist.

Pushkar had told couple of newspapers that she was considering divorce from Tharoor in the wake of the alleged extra-marital affair. On her part, Mehr denied Pushkar's allegations of her stalking Tharoor or having an affair with him.

However, after the media carried the war of words on the twitter, the couple issued a statement yesterday, claiming they were happily married.