The Delhi Police on Saturday told a local court that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and his late wife Sunanda Pushkar fought with each other when they were in Dubai, the Hindustan Times reported. The police asked the court to frame murder charges, or abetment to suicide charges against Tharoor.

Pushkar was found dead in a New Delhi hotel in January 2014. Tharoor is accused of abetting his wife’s suicide. Tharoor has claimed the charges against him are “preposterous and baseless” and a product of a “malicious and vindictive campaign”.

Public Prosecutor Atul Shrivastava told the court on Saturday that during their fights, on one occasion, Pushkar hit Tharoor. Shrivastava told the court that when the couple returned to India, they fought over a woman known as “catty” who was different from Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar. The Delhi Police based its claims on the statement of Tharoor’s servant.

It has been rumoured that Tharoor and Tarar were in a relationship at the time of Puhskar’s death.

The servant also said that Pushkar was to hold some press conference on the IPL, the police claimed. They said Pushkar was in a lot of mental agony, which was proved from a mail she had sent.

The Delhi Police added that Pushkar had confided in one of her friends, journalist Nalini Singh, a day before her death that Tharoor planned to divorce her after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and marry Tarar.

However, Tharoor’s lawyer Vikas Pahwa rejected the prosecution’s claims. “The prosecutor didn’t read opinions of experts who conducted psychological autopsy, who held that it’s neither a case of homicide nor suicide but due to some unidentified biological reasons,” he said. “If there is no evidence of suicide where is the question of abetment to suicide?”

Pahwa also alleged that the prosecution had read the evidence placed before it “in bits and pieces”. He said he will refute each and every point the prosecution has made, during the next hearing. “I can say that every bit of evidence collected by the SIT [Special Investigation Team] speaks just the opposite to what the prosecutor has argued today,” Pahwa said.

The lawyer said that there were many statements in the SIT report that showed that Tharoor always treated Pushkar with respect, but the prosecution had avoided them.

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