Sunanda Pushkar's is a case of sudden, unnatural death: Postmortem

New Delhi: Sunanda Pushkar died a 'sudden, unnatural death' with her body bearing several injury marks, it was disclosed on Saturday after an autopsy, deepening the mystery surrounding the death of Union Minister Shashi Tharoor's wife in the backdrop of alleged marital discord. 

Read here: Sunanda Pushkar cremated

52-year-old Sunanda was found dead in a 5-star hotel in South Delhi last night, a day after her Twitter spat with a Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar over an alleged affair with Tharoor. However, Sunanda and Tharoor had issued a joint statement declaring they were happily married. 

A team of three doctors at AIIMS conducted a postmortem on the body this afternoon in the presence of a magistrate after which head of the panel, Dr Sudhir Gupta, who is the chief of the Forensic Sciences Department at the hospital, said it was a case of 'sudden, unnatural death'. 

Dr Adarsh Kumar, Additional Professor Forensic Medicines and one of the doctors who conducted the postmortem, was asked if poisoning has not been ruled out as cause of the death. 

"Of course", he replied, indicating that poisoning had not been ruled out. 

"If any person is suffering from disease, the terminal event may be something else. It does not matter. Let the investigation be over," he said. 

Read here: Tharoor admitted to hospital, discharged after tests

According to a source, Sunanda's body bore injuries in her hand and face but they appear unlikely to be the cause of her death. 

She appears to have died between 1PM and 7PM on Friday. 

Sunanda was known to be suffering from stomach tuberculosis and Lupus, an auto-immune disorder which can lead to rashes or marks. Dr Kumar confirmed that Sunanda was suffering from these health problems and said that details of her treatment had been sought.

Dr Gupta said Sunanda's body had 'certain injuries' but refused to give details. "I cannot reveal the details of the injuries. Basically, in medico-legal cases, the number of injuries does not matter. Whether these injuries relate to fatality or not matters." 

A doctor said that there are cases in which a person may consume excessive alcohol and pass-out thereby losing control over their airways which get blocked leading to gastric aspiration which, in turn, causes acute pneumonia or even death. 

However, doctors concerned with the case refused to speculate on the cause of the death in the absence of a complete post-mortem report. 

The doctors described these as initial findings and said a clear picture would emerge after couple of days after they receive toxicological analysis and complete a visco- pathological examination. The post-mortem has been videographed. 

Sunanda Pushkar did not have serious health problems: Kerala doctors