Domestic unrest, spats marked Sunanda Pushkar's last days

While the Twitter spat that preceded Sunanda Pushkar’s tragic demise is well known, reports today hinted that all had not been well between her and husband, union minister Shashi Tharoor well before the incident blew up on the micro-blogging site. The Times of India in a report said that the couple had a ‘flaming row’ aboard a flight from Thiruvananthapuram on 15 January, despite the presence of Tharoor’s ministerial colleague Manish Tewari aboard the flight, and it continued well after they had landed at the Delhi airport. It was on 15 January that the tweets from Tharoor’s account sparked speculation that all was not well between the couple. While Pushkar made statements alleging the stalking of her husband by a Pakistani columnist, the couple issued a statement saying that all was well between them. [caption id=“attachment_1347659” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reports indicate all was not well between the couple. PTI[/caption] The report quoted an unnamed source as saying, “Differences had been brewing over six months but aggravated in the last two. She was extremely depressed and angry in her last three-four days.” Tharoor’s domestic help, Narain, has also reportedly told the Delhi police that the arguments between the couple did turn violent, the paper reported. Another report said that he had also heard the couple arguing in a hotel room the day before Pushkar’s death. An Indian Express report quoted the domestic help as saying that he had been with Puskhar since morning, but she had not answered the door in the evening which had opened only after Tharoor returned from the AICC meet. Doctors had said there were injury marks spotted on Pushkar’s body but had refused to speculate on what may have caused them and are presently awaiting the toxicological reports to confirm was caused her ‘sudden and unnatural’ death. The DNA reported that Pushkar had gone to the Hotel Leela on 16 January despite not having a booking and was in tears until she was consoled by hotel staff and given a room. Tharoor reportedly arrived later and was given another suite in the hotel. According to the report, the minister’s wife stayed in the room all day and did not come out even for breakfast and had only khichdi the whole day apart from a few glasses of juice. Journalist Nalini Singh has said that Pushkar had spoken with her in the early hours of 17 January about the joint statement issued by the couple after the controversial tweets, but has refused to disclose the contents of the conversation. “She said something to me on the joint statment and I will tell the police. It is only fair to her and Shashi Tharoor and to the investigation that I inform the police about it,” she told CNN-IBN. She did however reveal some details about the last conversation with Sunanda when asked if she was depressed. “She (Sunanda) sensed that things were going wrong and she couldn’t cope with that and Mehr Tarar was one of the persons who had stepped into the perception of her marriage,” she said. Meanwhile, doctors at the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences have said that despite speculation, Pushkar wasn’t suffering from any life threatening disease that could have resulted in her immediate death. “Her ailments were common to any woman above the age of 50. Her death has shocked us,” KIMS Hospital director and cardiologist Dr G Vijayaraghavan was quoted as saying in an Indian Express report.