Nearly a year after Sunanda Pushkar, wife of former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, was found dead at a hotel room in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, the police have registered a murder case in connection with the death.
The police also said that if needed, Mr. Tharoor could be called for questioning about the incident, which took place on January 17 last year.
Announcing this on Monday, Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi said that conclusions made in a medical report submitted to them on December 29 confirmed that Pushkar was poisoned.
The report, prepared by the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences after studying the viscera report, contradicted the preliminary report, which concluded that it was caused by "overdose of Alprax."
The new report, it is learnt, rules out the presence of Alprax in the body.
Mr. Bassi said they would try to find whether the poison was fed to Pushkar orally or injected into her body.
"To ascertain the quantity of poison we will have to send the samples abroad as it cannot be done in the country. For sending the viscera samples outside India for tests, we are required to register a case which we have. Further, medical reports make it amply clear that it was a case of unnatural death and hence section 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code has been invoked," he said.
Two laboratories where the nature of poison can be ascertained are in the United Kingdom while one is in the United States. The Delhi Police would now have to obtain a letter rogatory to request the foreign labs to assist them with the probe.
Nearly a year after Sunanda Pushkar, wife of former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, was found dead at a hotel room in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, the police have registered a murder case in connection with the death.
The police also said that if needed, Mr. Tharoor could be called for questioning about the incident, which took place on January 17 last year.
Announcing this on Monday, Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi said that conclusions made in a medical report submitted to them on December 29 confirmed that Pushkar was poisoned.
The report, prepared by the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences after studying the viscera report, contradicted the preliminary report, which concluded that it was caused by "overdose of Alprax."
The new report, it is learnt, rules out the presence of Alprax in the body.
Mr. Bassi said they would try to find whether the poison was fed to Pushkar orally or injected into her body.
"To ascertain the quantity of poison we will have to send the samples abroad as it cannot be done in the country. For sending the viscera samples outside India for tests, we are required to register a case which we have. Further, medical reports make it amply clear that it was a case of unnatural death and hence section 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code has been invoked," he said.
Two laboratories where the nature of poison can be ascertained are in the United Kingdom while one is in the United States. The Delhi Police would now have to obtain a letter rogatory to request the foreign labs to assist them with the probe.