Indian minister testifies in inquiry into wife’s death

Shashi Tharoor calls for a speedy investigation to "end the indignity to which my wife and I are being subjected".

India's junior human resource development minister, Shashi Tharoor, after performing the last rites for his wife Sunanda Puskhar at a cremation ground in New Delhi on January 18, 2014. Adnan Abidi / ReutersShow less

NEW DELHI // The Indian government minister Shashi Tharoor appeared on Sunday before a magistrate probing the death of his wife days after she accused him of adultery.

In a case that has become an election-year political embarrassment for the ruling Congress party, Mr Tharoor’s wife was found dead in a luxury hotel room in New Delhi on Friday after sending tweets that suggested her husband was having an affair with a Pakistan-based journalist.

A post-mortem revealed that Sunanda Pushkar’s death was “sudden and unnatural” and that her body bore injury marks, although doctors said it did not mean the injuries had caused her death.

Mr Tharoor, a high-flying former UN diplomat, called for a quick investigation into the death of his wife that he hoped would put an end to rumours about their personal lives.

“I have finally had a chance to catch up with media reports and am horrified to read the reckless speculation rampant there,” Mr Tharoor, a junior human resource development minister, wrote in a letter to India’s home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde.

“I pledge my full and unstinting cooperation. Nothing short of truth will end the indignity to which my wife and I are being subjected.”

Later on Sunday, Mr Tharoor, 57, gave his testimony to subdivisional magistrate Alok Sharma, who is leading the inquest into the death of his wife.

There was no word on what he had told the magistrate and he drove away without making any comment to reporters gathered outside the office, his face drawn.

The scandal has erupted just as the Congress party led by Rahul Gandhi is preparing to fight a tough election against a resurgent main opposition party as well as a new political group that promises clean and open politics.

Rivals have painted the Congress as a party of power and patronage, engulfed in corruption scandals and unable to hold its leaders to account for their actions.

Mr Tharoor’s marital problems have been splashed across the front pages of Indian newspapers and pored over by 24-hour television channels, prompting calls by the opposition for a fuller inquiry into the death of his wife.

Politicians in India have traditionally refrained from attacking each other’s personal lives and sex scandals involving top leaders are rare.

“The circumstances of this case are such that we need to get to the bottom of this,” said Subramaniam Swamy, a leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

Mr Tharoor and his wife, who was 52, hit the headlines last week when she said she had gone into his Twitter account and posted what she said were intimate messages from a Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar, to expose a “rip-roaring affair”.

Tarar hit back, saying she would sue Pushkar for calling her a Pakistani spy and denied she had an affair with her husband. She said she was friends with Mr Tharoor on Twitter and exchanged comments about articles she had written but that was all.

Five members of Mr Tharoor’s staff were also questioned by the magistrate leading the inquest into Pushkar’s death. Under Indian criminal law, a magistrate must conduct an inquiry if a woman has died within seven years of marriage.

Mr Tharoor and Pushkar, a former Dubai-based businesswoman, married in late 2010, the third marriage for both.

A Delhi police spokesman declined to comment on the line of inquiry into the death until the final post-mortem report.

* Reuters