Twitter taqraar with Tarar ends tragically for Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor

sunanda pushkar

Sunanda Pushkar with husband Shashi Tharoor

On Friday the 17th of January, while union HRD Minister Shashi Tharoor was tweeting condoling the death of veteran actor Suchitra Sen little did he know that his third wife Sunanda Pushkar lay dead in Delhi’s Leela Palace Hotel, in room number 345 as the couple had moved there for a temporary stay as their house was under renovation.
Although Pushkar’s body has been sent to AIIMS hospital for post mortem with suspicion of her having committed suicide the results will soon be out. As per law within seven years if wife commits suicide; husband is prima facie guilty.

The turn of events were such that the twitter war that went on prior to Sunanda’s death between her and a Pakistani journalist who Sunanda accused that she was stalking her husband.

The  war of words began  on Wednesday January the 15th when intimate tweets addressed to Mehr Tarar, a Pakistani journalist  were sent out from the Shashi Tharoor’s Twitter handle @ShashiTharoor, which has more than two million followers.

Meher Tarar

“I love you, Shashi Tharoor. And I go while in love with you, irrevocably, irreversibly, hamesha. Bleeding, but always your Mehr (sic),” read one such message.

This was followed by a tweet from Pushkar’s handle, calling Lahore-based Tarar “a horrible woman stalking my husband”.

“I get sick and go away 4 treatment & the vultures pounce (sic),” read another tweet.

Tharoor tried to nip the ugly spat between the two women in the bud, saying his and Pushkar’s Twitter accounts had been hacked.

But Pushkar denied his claim and told a newspaper she has been sending out those tweets. Calling Tarar an ISI agent, she said her husband was “flattered by the attention” he was getting from the Pakistani journalist.

Alluding to the controversy involving her husband during the 2010-Indian Premier League controversy, she also added, “I took upon myself the crimes of this man (Tharoor) during IPL. I will not allow this to be done to me.”

In April 2010, she had to give up a stake, estimated at  Rs.  70 crore, in the Kochi IPL team after allegations of corruption against her and Tharoor created a controversy.

Pushkar had posted around two dozen tweets in the last 24 hours, mostly regarding the controversy with Tarar.

In one of her tweets, she hinted Tarar had made “similar overtures” towards Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah. The J&K CM told HT he was dismayed and requested Pushkar not to drag him into the controversy.

Tharoor called his wife’s outburst “mystifying”, in a comment to a newspaper, and remained silent thereafter.

During the peak of the Twitter spat, Tarar had hit back at Pushkar, saying, “Unbelievable. The audacity” and “I have nothing to say to a woman clearly out of her mind”.

Talking to HT from Lahore by phone, Tarar had said, “My request to Mrs Tharoor is not to call me an ISI agent. Please tell her that my son is very upset.”

“She can call me whatever she wants, but calling me an ISI agent is just crazy. I hope Mr Tharoor has a successful marriage. I hope he wins  elections.”

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency.

In a joint statement, Tharoor and Pushkar had on Thursday said they were happily married and intended to stay together. In an interview with NDTV, Pushkar had refuted reports that she was contemplating divorcing the 57-year-old minister.

After the NDTV interview, Pushkar again tweeted: “Sad for her to know i guess (sic).”

This prompted a post from Tarar that read: “The wife trashed the husband. Now doing WTH damage control. Isse kehte hain apne hee giraate hain nashemaan pe biljlian (a house is destroyed by its own inhabitants only).”

Earlier, Shashi had said Sunanda was undergoing treatment. “My wife’s illness means i need to be with her&will miss all 5 events of #JaipurLitFest 2014. Have promised to atone in 2015,” he tweeted a few hours before she committed suicide.

Sunanda was suffering from Lupus and had been diagnosed with stomach TB. Reporters who interviewed her on January 15 say she was composed and didn’t appear to be depressed. She also flatly refuted any suggestions that Shashi had an affair with Mehr.

After learning about Sunanda’s death Mehr Tarar seems to be shell shocked being a party to those irritating tweets between her and Sunanda. Unfortunately Sunanda with her medical condition was vulnerable and took Mehr’s comments too seriously with  tragic consequences.

May God rest her soul in peace!

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