Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/20/twitter_india_minister_wife_dead_affair/

Indian minister's wife found dead after Twitter rampage

Sunanda Pushkar tweeted secret BBMs to prove alleged affair

By Phil Muncaster

Posted in Legal, 20th January 2014 05:32 GMT

The wife of Indian minister Shashi Tharoor has been found dead in a luxury New Delhi hotel room just days after she took to Twitter to expose her husband’s alleged infidelity.

It will apparently take a couple of days to determine the cause of Sunanda Pushkar’s death but one of the forensic specialist's involved has already claimed “it was sudden, unnatural death”, according to Reuters.

After private messages allegedly sent between Tharoor and Lahore Daily Times journalist Mehr Tarar appeared on Tahroor’s Twitter account last Wednesday, the minister claimed his account had been hacked.

However, Sunanda then took to local media to reveal it was she who posted the BBM messages in order to expose Tharoor's “rip-roaring affair”.

“Our accounts have not been hacked and I have been sending out these tweets,” she told the Economic Times. “I cannot tolerate this. This is a Pakistani woman who is an ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) agent, and she is stalking my husband. And you know how men are.”

The story took another twist as the couple then released a statement saying they had resolved their differences and that they were “happily married”. Sunanda’s body was found on Friday evening in the Leela Hotel where they were apparently staying because of renovation work being carried out at their home.

Junior human resource development minister Tharoor, 57, is one of the most popular Indian politicians on Twitter with over two million followers.

However, the former UN diplomat has courted controversy in the past. In 2010 he was forced to resign from his first ministerial position after being linked to an allegedly dodgy bid to launch a new cricket team in the Indian Premier League.

Those allegations also implicated his then girlfriend Sunanda Pushkar, whom he married later that year.

The latest tragic turn of events not only cast a dark shadow over Tharoor's future political career but will also deal a blow to the ruling Congress party, which he will represent at India's May general election. ®