Sunanda Pushkar case: Police seeks details of deleted chats

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police has written to Canada's Department of Justice seeking details of the deleted chats from the mobile phones of Sunanda Pushkar and her husband, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor.

The police has sent a Letters Rogatory to the department asking them to get details of chat messages from Research in Motion Ltd, a senior police officer said.

Senior Journalist Nalini Singh had told police that she had a chat with Sunanda in which she had mentioned that Tharoor and Pakistani Journalist Meher Tara had allegedly exchanged messages that were deleted from Tharoor's phone.

51-year-old Sunanda was found dead at a suite in a five- star hotel in South Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014, a day after her spat with Tarar on Twitter over her alleged affair with Tharoor.

Several persons including Tharoor have been questioned in connection with Sunanda's death. The police have also conducted polygraph test on six persons, all prime witnesses in the case, including Tharoor's domestic help Narayan Singh, driver Bajrangi and Sanjay Dewan, a close friend of the couple.

In February, Tarar was questioned about her relation with the Congress leader and his wife, her fight with Sunanda over Twitter, and other issues revolving around Sunanda's death.

Delhi Police had in January 2015 registered a case of murder in connection with Sunanda's death.

The FBI report sent to Delhi Police in November 2015 had virtually ruled out the theory of 'polonium poisoning' having caused her death.

However, after Delhi Police failed to draw any conclusion on basis of the findings, the report was handed over to a medical board for examination before further proceedings in the high-profile case.

The medical board is yet to give its opinion on cause of Sunanda's death.