FILE photo: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor with Sunanda Pushkar. (Reuters photo)
For the last 12 months of their four-year marriage, Sunanda Pushkar and politician Shashi Tharoor fought constantly; two days before she was found dead, the couple checked into a five-star hotel in Delhi in January 2014 and stayed up fighting till early in the morning, according to a man who worked as the Congressman's domestic helper.
Narain Singh was interrogated for nearly five hours yesterday by the Delhi Police, which registered Ms Pushkar's death as a murder earlier this week. NDTV has accessed his statement to the police.
Narain Singh claims he was with Ms Pushkar at the hotel on January 17; she asked him to rest at the official residence of Mr Tharoor, who
was then a union minister and bring back a white outfit that she planned to wear for a press conference. Just two days before that, Ms Pushkar had, in a series of angry tweets, accused her husband of having an affair with a Pakistani journalist.
Mr Singh has told the police that a few hours later, a friend of Ms Puhkar's identified as "Sunil" reached the hotel after allegedly having learnt that she was not well and had not woken up for hours.
Mr Tharoor arrived at the hotel suite a little before 8 pm; her bedroom door was locked. Mr Tharoor's aide then summoned the police and hotel staff for help; Ms Pushkar was found dead on her bed.
Mr Tharoor has not been questioned yet by the police; in a letter written by him to Delhi Police chief BS Bassi several months ago, he had alleged that during two earlier interrogation sessions of his domestic helper, Narain Singh had been beaten by the police who wanted to frame the politician for murder. The Police Chief has dismissed those allegations.