An autopsy report on Saturday said Indian minister Shashi Tharoor’s wife, who was found dead in a luxury hotel after accusing her husband of being unfaithful, suffered an “unnatural, sudden death”.
“More tests” are needed to determine the final cause of Sunanda Pushkar’s death and the results will not be known for two to three days, Sudhir Gupta, one of three doctors who carried out the autopsy, told reporters.
Tharoor was admitted to a hospital on a complaint of chest pain, a few hours after Sunanda’s decease.
Sunanda was found dead on Friday after she exposed the minister’s alleged affair with a Pakistani journalist on Twitter.
According to police sources, the minister had reported his wife’s death to police but the cause of her death was not immediately known.
Sunanda died a day after a issuing a joint statement along with her husband saying they were “happily married and intend to remain that way”.
“Sunanda has been ill and hospitalised this week and is seeking to rest” added the statement, requesting the media to respect their privacy.
Tharoor’s alleged affair came under media attention on Wednesday when a series of messages appeared on his Twitter account which showed private exchanges between him and Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar. In the messages, Tarrar admitted her love for him and he said his wife has found out about their affair.
Tharoor responded to the online fiasco by saying his Twitter account had been “hacked,” but his wife Sunanda, speaking to two Indian dailies, said that she was behind the messages.
“Our accounts have not been hacked and I have been sending out these tweets,” Sunanda told the Economic Times, adding to the Indian Express that she “100 percent” stood by the messages.
The Pakistani journalist strongly denied having an affair with the Indian Minister.
In the joint statement issued on Thursday, Tharoor said the couple were “distressed” by the controversy created by “unauthorised tweets” and condemned “distorted accounts of comments allegedly made by Sunanda in the press.”