Indian minister pledges to assist in wife’s death probe

An Indian government minister promised to co-operate in a probe into the death of his wife days after she accused him of adultery in a case that has become an embarrassment for the ruling Congress in an election year.

Shashi Tharoor’s wife was found dead in a luxury hotel room in New Delhi after she went public on Twitter, saying a Pakistan-based journalist had been stalking her husband.

An autopsy revealed that Sunanda Pushkar’s death was “sudden and unnatural” and that her body bore injury marks, although doctors said it didn’t mean those injuries had caused her death.

Tharoor, a former UN diplomat, called for a quick investigation into the death of his wife.

“I have finally had a chance to catch up with media reports and am horrified to read the reckless speculation rampant there,” Tharoor, a junior human resource development minister, wrote in a letter to home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. “I pledge my full and unstinting co-operation. Nothing short of truth will end the indignity to which my wife and I are being subjected.”

The scandal has erupted just as the Congress party led by Rahul Gandhi is preparing to fight a tough election against a resurgent main opposition party as well as a new political group that promises clean and open politics.

Rivals have painted the Congress as a party of power and patronage, engulfed in corruption scandals and unable to hold its leaders to account.

Tharoor’s marital problems have been splashed across the front pages of newspapers and pored over by 24-hour television channels, prompting calls by the opposition for a fuller inquiry.

Tharoor and his wife hit the headlines earlier this week when Sunanda said she had gone into his Twitter account and posted what she said were intimate messages from Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar to expose a “rip-roaring affair”.