Shashi, Sunanada were a happy couple: Family friend

New Delhi, Jan 14: Sanjay Dewan, a family friend of Shashi Tharoor and his wife Sunanda Pushkar and a key witness in her mysterious death case, today said they were a "happy couple" and he was not aware whether she was suffering from any ailment.

"Since 2006, I have known Shashi Tharoor, after he got married to Sunanda. For what I have known of them, they were a happy couple. Yes, like every couple has a little bit of tiffs, they would also be having but to my knowledge, there was nothing which could be termed as a fight," Dewan told a TV channel today.

Asked whether Sunanda was suffering from Lupus or any other ailment Dewan said "not to my knowledge. I was a friend of theirs and the last time I met them was a month and a half before this incident. So I was not meeting them on a daily basis." He also said that he has been called thrice so far by the police for questioning, "probably the most number of times. Asked why police call him again and again, he said "I happened to be there at the time which happens to be important to them.'

Explaining the happenings of January 17 when Sunanda was found dead in a five star hotel suite in south Delhi, Dewan said "I reached the hotel at around 5 PM and Tharoor came around 7:30 PM. Tharoor checked on Sunanda around 7:45 PM and said that something has happened to her following which the hotel staff arrived within minutes."

Asked who all were there when it happened, he said "there were four people, Mr Sharma (Tharoor's personal assistant Rakesh Kumar Sharma), Bajrangi, Narayan Singh (both Tharoor's domestic helps) and myself."

PTI