No fresh report on Pushkar's mysterious death: Delhi Police

Sunanda Pushkar was found under mysterious circumstances in a luxurious Delhi hotel on January 17, 2014.

New Delhi, Jan 28: Delhi Police on Saturday denied that it had received any fresh report from a medical panel that was tasked to examine the findings of a probe by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and AIIMS into Sunanda Pushkar's mysterious death.

"We have not received any such report, so far, from the medical board," Deputy Commissioner of Police Ishwar Singh told IANS. Singh heads the Special Investigation Team into the death of Pushkar -- wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor -- whose body was found under mysterious circumstances in a luxurious Delhi hotel on January 17, 2014.

The medical board of four doctors from Delhi, Chandigarh and Puducherry was constituted in June last year and to provide final opinion on FBI and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) reports on Pushkar's viscera.

There were reports that the SIT probing the death had received an "inconclusive" report two weeks ago from the medical board. But Singh denied the report, saying: "We are still waiting for the report by the medical board."

The police officer said that the probe panel was also awaiting Pushkar's Blackberry messenger transcript for any hints that would solve one of the high profile whodunit murder mysteries in India.

Pushkar's viscera samples were sent to the FBI lab in Washington in February 2015 to determine the kind of poison that killed her after an AIIMS medical board alleged that poisoning was the reason behind her death. The AIIMS medical board had however did not specified the poisonous substance.

Head of the Forensic Department at AIIMS, Sudhir Gupta told IANS that by merely examining the documents, any "conclusive report" in Pushkar's case was not possible. "It is not possible for a new panel to give conclusive report just by investigating the case on the basis of documents only," Gupta, who had performed Pushkar's autopsy along with two other doctors, said.

Gupta also raised question on the need of getting the case probed by another panel and said: "When we had already submitted the conclusive report after performing the autopsy of Sunanda Pushkar then what is the point of getting it investigated by another panel."

"This is just to twist the case and let people remain confused about Pushkar's death," Gupta told IANS.

IANS