Shashi Tharoor stable now, to be discharged from AIIMS soon

New Delhi: Union Minister Shashi Tharoor is not stable and is likely to be discharged from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences soon.

"Mr Tharoor is stable. He is likely to be discharged very soon," a doctor said.

Tharoor was admitted to AIIMS on Friday night after he complained of uneasiness and chest pain soon after his wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead.

He was initially admitted to the ICU and was later moved out of the ICU after he was out of danger. "Shashi Tharoor was admitted on Friday night as he was suffering from hypertension, he was having palpitations and experiencing giddiness. Doctors felt it was a minor cardiac event. I won't say it was a precautionary measure. There was some problem, which had to be treated," said Dr DK Sharma, Medical Superintendent, AIIMS.

Meanwhile, the post-mortem of his wife Sunanda Pushkar is likely to be carried out on Saturday by a team of doctors at AIIMS. The AIIMS Director has constituted a 3-member panel of doctors for carrying out the post-mortem.

"The post-mortem will begin immediately after the police bring the inquest papers. The post-mortem procedure takes an hour and we can give a report within a few hours as well. But it depends on how clear the findings are. If the medical examination is not conclusive, we will have to wait for the lab reports," Dr Sharma said.

Dr Vijayraghavan, Vice Chairman of the KIMS hospital, where Pushkar was admitted a few days back, said, "There was no life threatening disease to Sunanda. She walked out of the hospital and she attended a function after being discharged from the hospital."

Sunanda was found dead on Friday evening at Delhi's Leela Palace Hotel. She had been suffering from emotional turmoil as well as physical ailments like Lupus and stomach TB.

Her body was found by Shashi Tharoor at around 8:30 PM on Friday evening in their hotel room number 345 after he returned from the All India Congress Committee meeting. The tragic death has sent shockwaves through the national capital and the political class.

A SDM level/inquest enquiry has been ordered under Section 176 as her marriage with Shashi Tharoor was less than seven years old. Delhi Police refused to elaborate saying it is waiting for the SDM to submit a report on the case.

"Forensic experts are collecting scientific evidence," said Delhi Police PRO Rajan Bhagat.

The police investigating Sunanda Pushkar's death questioned a number of hotel staff and checked the CCTV fotage of the lobby of the third floor of the luxury hotel where she was staying. Sources in the police said call details record of Pushkar was also being checked as part of the probe into her death. A team of Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) reached the hotel around 10:30 PM and immediately swung into action.

The 52-year-old Sunanda had checked in on Thursday apparently because her home was undergoing repairs. Police sources say Sunanda was last seen at 3.30 PM on Friday in the hotel lobby. The house keeping staff knocked at her room's door at 7:30 PM but there was no response, sources say. The room was opened with another swipe card and her dead body was found on the bed.

"Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in her hotel room, lying in her bed, at around 8.30 pm on Friday," said Shashi Tharoor's Personal Secretary Abhinav Kumar.

Just 12 hours ago, Sunanda had been embroiled in a very public spat on Twitter. The Twitter war was nothing short of sensational. It started after a string of tweets from Shashi Tharoor's Twitter handle which was apparently hacked and then from Sunanda. The tweets were Mehr and it was followed by a response from Mehr Tarar.

Sunanda had accused Mehr Tarar of having a relationship with her husband. She had accused Tarar of stalking her husband and of being an ISI agent. "We have a hacker and she is stalking my husband. She has hacked into my husband's computer, into my computer. She is an ISI agent," Sunanda Pushkar had said on Thursday.

Finally a Facebook post from the couple claimed that all was well. Yet just 12 hours later after the post, Sunanda was dead.

She was suffering from Lupus, and had been recently diagnosed with stomach TB. Whether her death was in fact a suicide will only be established after the post-mortem.

From Twitter to tragedy in 24 hours, the death of Sunanda, the attractive wife of a dashing Central minister, will remain a reminder of the harsh realities and mental agony that sometimes underlie the life of power and glamour.

(With additional information from PTI)