New Delhi: Delhi police commissioner Amulya Patnaik has reportedly formed a team of four senior officials under the supervision of DCP (South) to prepare a report on the plea of The Leela Place Hotel in which it has sought the court’s permission to open room 345, where the body of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found under mysterious circumstances last year.
The team consists of two SHOs and one senior inspector, who were previously looking after the matter but were later transferred to different police stations.
A highly placed source said that the decision to form the team was taken after the hotel moved a plea before the court of metropolitan magistrate Pankaj Sharma that it wanted to open the room for its clients. The court has not given any permission to the hotel to open the room.
The court has asked the police to file its reply to the hotel’s plea.. “The police has to tell the court whether it wants Leela Palace to open the room for public. We still think that forensic evidence can be destroyed if the room is thrown open to general public,” the source said. The source said that Veer Krishan Pal Singh Yadav, Kotla Mubarakpur SHO , Ravi Shankar, Lodhi Colony SHO and inspector of Sarojini Nagar police station Pradeep Rawat are part of the team.
The three-member team will be led by South Delhi DCP Ishwar Singh. The team will prepare its report within two months and will file its reply before the court in August.
“A day after The Leela Place Hotel moved the plea, the DCP (South) discussed the matter with the police commissioner. Mr Patnaik then asked him to form a team for filing the reply. SHO Lodhi Colony, SHO KM Pur and ATO Sarojini Nagar were roped in as they were previously looking after the murder case,” the source said.
On January 17 2014, Pushkar, wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, was found dead under mysterious circumstances at Leela Palace in New Delhi, a day after she had a spat on Twitter with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar. On January 16, Pushkar had tweeted some material that hinted a possible romantic liaison between Mr Tharoor and Ms Tarar. The Delhi police has questioned Mr Tharoor reportedly over sixty times in connection with the Pushkar matter.
The police has also conducted polygraph test on six people after getting court permission but failed to get any lead in the case.
The autopsy report of Pushkar had hinted that she had died of an overdose of sleeping pills. The report was inconclusive as to how she died and whether it was a suicide. It was only after AIIMS doctors failed to detect any poisonous substance that the samples were handed over to the FBI in Washington.
