'Dangerous chemical' may have killed Sunanda: FBI

New Delhi, Jan 15: The case of sensational death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, reached a new stage with the FBI endorsing the AIIMS report of poisoning as the cause and also saying that a "dangerous chemical" was present in her body that may have killed her.

Disclosing the receipt of the AIIMS report analysing the FBI conclusions, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi told the media that Sunanda's death was not natural but ruled out the presence of radioactive material in her viscera. Sudhir Gupta, head of AIIMS Forensic Science department, said the FBI report also said the death was due to poisoning as was concluded by the AIIMS.

"One thing is clear that the death was not natural. It was unnatural as per our investigation till now and evidence collected so far. I can say that with certainty," Bassi told reporters here.

He further said, "I have no knowledge on the mention of any dangerous chemical in the FBI report. The FBI report had said none of the samples contained any radioactive material.

I can confirm there's no radiaoactive material but certain other findings are there. We had given the entire report to the medical board which has examined and gave us a report." Gupta said FBI has not ruled out completely the presence of radioactive substances in viscera samples.

"But due to degraded condition of the viscera samples, they could not read the intensity of the substances." He said the FBI analysis of stomach, spleen, liver, kidney and urine has endorsed the cause of death saying that "the same poison is present in all the viscera".

"It also endorsed the AIIMS post-mortem report saying cause of death is poisoning. However, FBI additionally mentioned the presence of a dangerous chemical which may be cause of the death if given injectable," Gupta said.

In January last year, Delhi Police had registered a case of murder in connection with the death of Sunanda. An AIIMS medical board had found poisoning as reason for her death following which the police had sent her viscera samples to an FBI lab in Washington last year.

There was earlier speculation that Sunanda may have died as a result of poisoning through radioactive substances.

The FBI had sent its report to Delhi Police two months ago. The report said the radiation levels in Sunanda's viscera samples were "within the standard safety norms" besides mentioning other details. As police could not firm up about cause of the death based on the FBI report, they requested a medical board of AIIMS to analyse the contents of the report.

PTI