Sunanda Pushkar murder case: 4 under scanner for removing evidence

Four people are on the radar of the Special Investigating Team who could have possibly removed the evidence from the room in which Sunanda Pushkar was found dead. The Alprax tablets which had been stated last year to be the cause of her death could have also been planted over there.

There is strong evidence to show that some of the articles were removed in the room by one of the four people at the insistence of someone who wanted to cover up the murder, the official of the SIT points out.

According to the evidence on hand one of the four people, Narayan Singh, Tharoor's personal assistant R.K. Sharma, family friend Sanjay Dewan, Tharoor's driver Bajrangi had visited the room. Some of the articles went missing after that the Delhi SIT claims.

Deliberately removed

From what the SIT has been able to gather, the articles in the room which included her shoes and clothes were removed deliberately. One of these people had visited the room after her death and removed evidence. We are however not suggesting that one of these persons may have gone to the room before the incident and this is a subject matter of investigation, the police say.

The items were removed in a hurry and in that process this persons ended up breaking a glass too. He did not clear up the glass, but left the room in a hurry along with the articles, the police also states.

It appears as though they had cleared up the articles as there could be some evidence attached to it at the insistence of the person alleged to have planned and executed the murder.

Hotel staff confirm seeing the removed articles

On questioning some of the Hotel Staff the SIT has learnt that all the articles that had gone missing were in fact there prior to the incident. This gives our investigation more weight as we now can state certainly that the articles were removed from the room.

The last person to have seen her alive was Narayan Singh. According to the investigation it has been learnt that Singh had seen her last at 7.30 am. She sounded disturbed, the cops have learnt. The cops also stated that after Narayan Singh left the room, she had made a call at around 7.58 am and this was her last call.

IPL angle is serious

The Delhi SIT is drawing up a list of all those people interested in the IPL issue. They are going through the statement of accounts of both Sundanda and Shashi Tharoor. There are several names in it and we will question all of them, the officer pointed out.

It is a very serious angle and we believe that there is a lot in it that needs to be probed. We are also looking into some people in Dubai who were in touch during the IPL episode. Sunanda was given a sweat equity in the Kochi Tuskers IPL franchise. This had led to allegations that the same was done due to the influence of Tharoor.

We are not ruling out anything. Right from spot fixing in the IPL to the money that was involved in the team are all under the radar of the probe, the officer also said.

Journalists depose

The Delhi police is also recording the statements of journalists in connection with this case. Two lady journalists have also been asked to record their statements. In addition to this eight others who Sunanda was in touch with will also be told to record their statements.

The Delhi police will also call in Tharoor once again for questioning. This probably may happen after the Jaipur Literary Fest where Tharoor is at the moment. His answers were not completely satisfactory the first time around and hence we need to ask him more.

He was asked about the IPL angle too and questioned as to what Sunanda had planned on blurting out that would "finish him." He point blank told the investigators that he did not know what she had wanted to say.

The trip to central Delhi

Who had Sunanda met at the government bungalow at Central Delhi. The police say that they have leads on this but would not reveal anything much now. She had in fact stepped out of her hotel room and visited someone at this place a day before she died.

When she left the hotel room she was however not alone. It appeared to be a meeting out of duress or distress. There was something that she wanted to share and this visit could have well been in connection with that the SIT believes. There is also CCTV evidence of her leaving the room to this effect.