Charge Shashi Tharoor for murder in Sunanda Pushkar case: Police to court

New Delhi, Aug 31: The Delhi Police on Saturday urged a local court to prosecute Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for abetment to suicide or on murder charge in the Sunanda Pushkar death case.

"Please frame sections 498-A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty), 306 (abetment of suicide) or in alternative 302 (murder) IPC against the accused (Tharoor)," the probe agency told special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar.

Reading a statement of the couple's domestics help who is one of the witnesses in the case special prosecutor Atul Srivastava said that the couple had a fight over a girl named ''Katy'' and some Blackberry messages.

The prosecutor said that before her death, Pushkar wanted to address a press conference on the Indian Premier League issue.

The agency told the court that Ms Pushkar was "distressed" and "felt betrayed" in her marital life.

The police told the court that Ms Pushkar was suffering from mental agony due to a strained relationship with her husband. She had a scuffle with her husband and had various injury marks days before her death, they said.

The police accused Shashi Tharoor of torturing his wife which abetted her to commit suicide.

The prosecutor also informed the court about Sunanda Pushkar's friend and journalist Nalini Singh's statement that the relation between the couple was tense.

"She (Pushkar) told she helped Tharoor a lot in IPL matter. She had found some messages between Tarar (Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar) and Tharoor. She refused to go to their house and instead went to the Leela hotel. The relation between the couple was very bad," Singh had said in her statement.

Tharoor's lawyer refuted the allegations, saying the arguments made by the prosecutor were contrary to the bare reading of the charge sheet and the charges pressed by him were "absurd and preposterous".

The case is now listed for the next hearing on October 17.