Shashi Tharoor wanted to marry Pak journalist Mehar Tarar

NEW DELHI: Journalist Nalini Singh, who claimed to have spoken to Sunanda Pushkar hours before her death, has said in her statement to the magistrate that Sunanda had told her that her husband Shashi Tharoor was going to marry Pakistani journalist Mehar Tarar.

"Sunanda said Tarar and Tharoor had exchanged intimate romantic messages and that one of the messages from Tarar implied that Tharoor was going to divorce her after the 2014 general elections and get married to Tarar. And that Tarar had written in a message that she could not live without him. Sunanda said Tharoor's family was also encouraging this affair," Singh said in her statement.

"To my query if the Twitter messages posted from Tharoor's account were genuine, she said they were completely genuine and that somebody who deeply cared for her had posted them in public space. Incidentally, she also said she had taken over the crimes of Tharoor in the IPL matter but did not state if she was going to expose the matter," the journalist added.

Confirming that the couple had fought incessantly before Sunanda's death in Leela Hotel in January this year, her servant Narain has too mentioned in his statement that the couple fought from midnight to 4am.

Narain has said that Sunanda later called someone up and narrated the fight. Police also scanned the call records and found that it was her brother.

Nalini told the SDM that when she prodded Sunanda about her and the Congress leader's statement about being happily married, she said Tharoor wanted to make a statement and she had told him to do "whatever the ****" he wanted to do.

Nalini also said that Sunanda said she was extremely ill with lupus and stomach TB and now feared cancer. "She also said she had checked into a hospital herself and that Tharoor had never taken her to a doctor or a hospital. She also mentioned Tharoor had a romantic liaison with another woman and mentioned about a flight from Pune," Nalini said.