A court in Delhi has summoned senior congress leader and MP Shahshi Tharoor in connection with the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. Tharoor has to appear before the Patiala House Court on 7 July as an accused.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal took cognisance of Delhi Police’s chargesheet and summoned the Thiruvananthapuram MP. “I have gone through chargesheet and documents filed …On the basis of the police report, I take cognisance for the offence of abetment to suicide punishable under Section 306 and committing cruelty upon late Sunanda Pushkar under Section 498A IPC,” the magistrate was quoted as saying.
The Delhi Police on 14 May had accused Tharoor, in a nearly 3,000-page charge sheet, of abetting Pushkar’s suicide and told 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.
The chargesheet mentions marital discord as the cause of suicide and says that one party led the other to commit suicide. “Sunanda Pushkar was being harassed for long. Her medical records show she was suffering from depression,” the chargesheet said.
Meanwhile, Tharoor, who’s currently London, responded to the summon by releasing a full statement, asking media to respect his privacy since the matter was ‘sub-judice.’
Tharoor wrote, “I would like to reiterate my position that I find the charges preposterous and baseless, the product of a malicious and vindictive campaign against myself. I will continue to vigorously contest these charges and maintain my steadiest conviction that ultimately the truth will prevail through the judicial system that we are privileged to have in our country.”
“In the meantime, I would like to request the media to respect my right to privacy as well as that of my family. Given that the manner is sub-judice, I will refrain from commenting on this issue further until such time as the next scheduled hearing of the case,” he wrote.
My statement on today’s news. pic.twitter.com/5zWf4PR9ue
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 5, 2018
Pushkar was found dead in a luxury hotel room on January 17, 2014, days after being embroiled in a Twitter war with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar over the latter’s alleged closeness with Tharoor.
