Sunanda Pushkar’s death last January had caused quite a stir. Here was a woman, a generally happy-go-lucky personality if her ‘friends’ were to be believed, who was found dead in a hotel room.
What caught not just the media frenzy, but also social media hype was the fact that her death came a day after the Twitter controversy. On January 15, 2014 a series of intimate messages, supposedly sent out by Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar, were posted on Tharoor’s Twitter account. The tweets proclaimed her love for the high-profile politician. Within minutes the tweets were picked up and retweeted and commented upon. Here was masala – politics, Pakistan and pyaar. Sunanda was quick to deny any rumours of the accounts being hacked and accused the journalist of stalking her husband, even calling her an ISI agent. She later changed her stance and released a joint statement with Tharoor saying that they were happily married. The statement also included a remark stating that Sunanda had been hospitalised after being ill, and was seeking rest. A day later she was found dead. Her husband, politician Sashi Tharoor discovered her body when she did not wake up from her sleep in the evening. Initial reports suggested a case of suicide.
People took it as an idle opportunity to claim their two seconds of fame with alleged ‘friends’ using social media (or news channels if they were lucky enough) to talk about Sunanda and how she would ‘never ever commit suicide.’ Long before the first report came through Twitter users and citizen journalists had already decided – it was a plain case of murder. So it came as a shocker when the official reports said that her death was a case of suicide caused by drug overdose. A combination of sedatives, other strong medicines and probably alcohol lead to her death. However not much later social media woke up again to re-tweets and updates about AIIMS’ doctor Sudhir Gupta’s statement that he was pressurised to give out a false report which indicated that she died of drug overdose. An investigation was ordered and yesterday the Delhi Police confirmed what Twitter has been screaming out, the only difference being that the police had facts and Twitter had gossip as their fallback. It was a murder.
We are now charging ourselves for what will follow. A whole bunch of ‘friends’ will prop up again, some self proclaimed detectives will already know who the murderer is and maybe Ram Gopal Verma will declare that he wants to make a movie out of it all.
However there is also a tiny part of us that can’t help but wonder when will the mystery be solved, if at all! Looking at the current scenarios, where it took the police one entire year just to determine whether it was a murder or suicide, doesn’t give us too much hope.
While we wait for some clarity in the Sunanda Pushkar murder, here are a few other high-profile deaths that are yet to be solved.
Jiah Khan: The actress known for her role in Nishabd where she romanced the much older Amitabh Bachchan, reportedly committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan in the bedroom of her Juhu apartment. Two years later all that we have is a six-page suicide note which points the finger at her boyfriend Suraj Panscholi, son of actors Aditya Panscholi and Zarina Wahab. Suraj is out on bail while the investigation continues. The late actress’ mother Rabiya Khan has demanded a re-investigation while the Panscholis have slapped a defamation case against Rabiya of Rs. 100 crore.
Nafisa Joseph: Beauty queen turned VJ and actress Nafisa Joseph committed suicide by hanging herself in her apartment in 2004. At the time of her suicide she was engaged to businessman Gautam Khanduja. While her parents claimed that she committed suicide because the marriage was called off, some media reports say that she was in a relationship with model Sameer Malhotra. A trial against Khanduja was called off in 2006 after he claimed that there was no evidence to prove that breaking off the engagement had led to Joseph’s suicide. Eleven years later, the reason for her death still remains a mystery.
Silk Smitha: Silk probably can be termed as the country’s most erotic actress. While she was on a career high, her tragic personal life is the alleged reason for her suicide in 1996. She was found hanging in her residence in Chennai. However certain reports also claim that there was a hint of poison in her bloodstream which leaves behind a question on the nature of her death. Did she poison herself or could it be a case of murder? Her life story inspired Ekta Kapoor to make a movie which won Vidya Balan a national award, however, the reason behind her death still remains unsolved.
Image courtesy: BCCL
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