Evidence in Sunanda case inconclusive: Delhi Police

As the mystery behind the death of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar took a new turn, Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi on Friday said the forensic evidence available was “inconclusive”.

“The evidence is not yet conclusive, as we have no proper forensic report and our inquest is pending. When we get a conclusive report, we can reach to any conclusion,” Bassi told mediapersons. The commissioner also said that the Delhi Police is competent enough to carry out the probe.

However, the 12-page post-mortem report prepared by a panel of three doctors and submitted to police on September 30 states that police were not cooperating with the doctors and were not providing crucial information.

The report stated that “the reason for these physical injuries, circumstantial evidences and statements have not been submitted by the Investigation Officer (IO) in spite of the letter sent on April 4”. The report also pointed that the IO did not provide “photographs of scene of crime”.

It further stated that medicines were recovered from the hotel room in which Sunanda was found dead. Police have been accused of not providing information regarding the “people who had prescribed the drugs and from where these drugs were procured and for whom these drugs were prescribed”.

While the doctors highlight that police was not cooperating, sources claimed that a senior police officer was not keen to provide details to anyone. A Deputy Commissioner of Police rank officer was also kept out of the loop when he wanted to expedite the probe and share the details with the panel of doctors.

Dr Sudhir Gupta, Head of Forensic Sciences of AIIMS, however, said that he would not like to comment on the issue. “Both the reports have the same findings. The case is now open ended. It is for the Delhi Police to investigate the case,” he told a news channel. 

Earlier, Gupta had claimed that there was pressure from top officials to tamper with Sunanda’s report. According to a source in AIIMS who was a part of the post-mortem team, there was an injection puncture between two fingers of Sunanda, which looked like “the work of an amateur”.

“This doesn’t conclude whether it was a homicide or suicide,” said the source.