Sunanda Pushkar murder case: Pak author Mehr Tarar questioned, denies links with Tharoor

Pakistani author and columnist Mehr Tarar was questioned in connection with the Sunanda Pushkar murder case, by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Delhi Police for about three hours in the last week of February.

Being a Pakistani national, the summons could not have been issued to her and, thus, the police had requested her to cooperate and join the probe.

She was questioned about the bitter fight that had broken out between her and Sunanda in January/February of 2014, said sources.

Sunanda was found dead inside her suite at a five-star hotel in New Delhi in January 2014, a day after she was involved in a spat with Tarar on Twitter over the latter's alleged affair with Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram.

Tarar was also told about allegations levelled by journalist Nalini Singh, who was Sunanda's close friend.

As per the sources, Tarar cooperated with the police but denied charges of any 'proximity'or a 'relationship' with Tharoor, but said that she knew the former minister and had met him at a book exhibition in 2013.

Along with a recording of Tarar's statement, the SIT is in possession of the recorded statements of all key players associated with the case.

Sunanda's viscera samples were sent to the FBI lab in Washington DC in February, to determine the kind of poison that killed her, after an AIIMS medical board identified poisoning as the reason behind her death.

The FBI had endorsed the AIIMS report on poisoning and also said that a "dangerous chemical" was present in her body that may have killed her.

--ANI