Sunanda Pushkar death: Delhi court orders police to de-seal hotel suite before 16 October

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday granted six days to the city police to comply with its earlier order to de-seal a five-star hotel suite where Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in 2014. Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmender Singh granted time till 16 October to the police after an Additional Commissioner of Police, Delhi, submitted that the reports from forensic laboratory were likely to come in a couple of days. [caption id=“attachment_2068853” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] FIle image of Sunanda Pushkar. PTI[/caption] The court had earlier rapped the police for not complying with its order to de-seal the suite. While the South Delhi hotel has been urging the court to direct the police to de-seal the room which was sealed for investigation soon after Pushkar was found dead on the night of 17 January, 2014, the court has also been directing the police to do so on quite a few occasions. Hours after Pushkar was found dead, the suite was sealed for investigation. An FIR was registered by Delhi police on 1 January, 2015 against unknown persons under IPC section 302 (murder). The police was on 12 September directed to de-seal the suite and allowed the police to take all articles from the room required for its probe, besides filing a compliance report. In this order, the court had noted that a huge financial loss has already been caused to the hotel. On 4 September too, the court had taken the police to task for its “lethargic attitude” in its probe into the case and summoned the DCP to explain why more time should be granted for de-sealing the suite. Similarly on 19 August, the court had pulled up the agency for delaying the de-sealing of the room and referred to a court order passed on 21 July asking it to do so within four weeks from then.