Nalini Singh, a friend of Sunanda Pushkar, in a statement to the police has said that the deceased Sunanda told her hours before her death that Shashi Tharoor spent three days in Dubai with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar. The admission may pose a problem for Tharoor, police sources said. Tarar allegedly told Shashi Tharoor that she could not live without him, Singh claimed while quoting Sunanda, according to a report in Times of India on Tuesday.
Delhi police’s SIT will be going through evidence that is a year old before it questions Tharoor. The statement given by Nalini Singh has its ramifications and needs to be thoroughly probed. Tharoor was a Union minister at the time the alleged three-day meeting took place.
In her statement, Singh says, “I knew Sunanda socially since the last 3-4 years. Over the last year or so Sunanda had started talking to me about her private life and particularly about her relationship with Shashi. Almost 6-7 months ago, Sunanda had shared her pain over what she thought was mutual romantic interest between Tharoor and Tarar.
“She told me that she was sure that the two had spent three days together in Dubai in June 2013. She told me that since she had a strong base in Dubai her friends had informed her about the meeting. Sunanda had claimed that she had proof of the allegations.
“At 12.10am, on the intervening night of January 16 and 17, I got a call on my mobile from Sunanda. She sounded extremely distraught and was sobbing. She said Shashi and Tarar had exchanged intimate romantic messages. One message from Tarar implied that Tharoor was going to divorce Sunanda after the forthcoming general elections and marry Tarar. And that Tarar has written in a message that she cannot live without him.
“Sunanda also alleged that Tharoor’s family was encouraging this affair. To my query on whether the messages from Tharoor’s account had been genuine, she said that they were completely genuine and somebody who cared for her deeply had posted them in the public space,” Singh said. Police believe this person was Sunil Trakru.
“Incidentally, she also said she had ‘taken over’ the crimes of Tharoor in terms of the IPL issue. She said that Tharoor had never taken her to a hospital or doctor. She said she wanted my help in retrieving the BBM messages that Tharoor had deleted off his Blackberry. She said she already had a stock of such messages with her,” Singh said.
During the conversation Sunanda was joined by somebody (the police said it was Narain) to whom she asked something about sahib and the male voice answered in Hindi.
Police commissioner B S Bassi meanwhile reiterated that they were conducting a fair and thorough probe into the murder.
