‘SUNANDA DIED OF DRUG OVERDOSE’

The preliminary post-mortem report of Sunanda Pushkar — the wife of Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor who was found dead in a hotel room here last Friday — has indicated that it was a case of drug overdose, police sources said.

The findings by a three-member-panel set up at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences were on Monday submitted to Sub-Divisional Magistrate Alok Sharma conducting an inquest into the sudden and unnatural death of Sunanda Pushkar.

Speaking to The Hindu after receiving the interim post-mortem report, Mr. Sharma said he was yet to go through the document. But, he said the inquest report would be submitted to the police by Tuesday.

AIIMS sources said that traces of chemicals found in her body indicated consumption of some anti-depressant and that there were nearly a dozen injuries on the body. The SDM would now wait for the toxicology report and other findings to ascertain if the overdose did lead to death.

Following the death, the police sources said they had recovered some empty strips of a prescription psychiatric medicine from the hotel in Delhi’s diplomatic enclave where the body was found.

Even as the post-mortem report established the reason behind the death, the inquest report would use it as well as the testimonies recorded before the magistrate and other circumstantial evidence to find out the circumstances under which the intake of the medicines had gone up beyond the prescribed levels.

Veteran journalist Nalini Singh, who spoke to Sunanda Pushkar a night before her death, has purportedly told the SDM that the latter sounded depressed over an alleged relationship between her husband and Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar.

The purported telephonic conversations between the two happened after a heated Twitter war between Sunanda Pushkar and Ms. Tarar.