Indian Politician’s Wife Is Found Dead

NEW DELHI — He was a smooth-talking politician from South India with an international reputation from his time at the United Nations. She was a beautiful Kashmiri from the north when they met in 2009 in middle age and began a relationship partly played out in the media, and social media, glare.

Now after public allegations that he was having an affair, the woman is dead, in what a doctor called an “unnatural, sudden death.” Her husband, Shashi Tharoor, briefly checked himself into a hospital with chest pains. And Twitter is alive with virtual handwringing over whether the medium allowed a dangerous level of overexposure.

The unraveling of the couple’s personal lives began last week, when the wife, Sunanda Pushkar, was quoted as saying she sent out a series of messages on Twitter that she said proved that a Pakistani journalist was pursuing her husband. Days later, on Friday, he reported finding his wife dead in a hotel bed.

On Saturday, Sudhir Gupta, one of the doctors who performed an autopsy, told reporters that “there were certain injury marks on the body, but we can’t divulge details at this point.” He ruled out poisoning and said it would take several days to determine the cause of death.

The death of Ms. Pushkar, 52, stunned many in New Delhi’s journalistic and political circles, many of whom had followed the twists in her life since she met Mr. Tharoor, a high-profile member of the governing Indian National Congress party. Married twice before, Ms. Pushkar, became Mr. Tharoor’s third wife in 2010 in the wake of a scandal that led to his resigning as junior minister for foreign affairs. The scandal centered on accusations that he had used his official influence to help her get an ownership stake in a franchise in India’s cricket league. He denied any financial wrongdoing.

After their marriage, when he was again needled for the scandal, the two of them — both prolific users of social media — turned to Twitter and the media to discuss their relationship. He called her “priceless,” leading to some ridicule for his public display of affection. She then told a TV interviewer, “Shashi and I show our love with P.D.A.”

On Wednesday, Ms. Pushkar, who seemed to have gained access to her husband’s Twitter account, began posting messages she said he had received from the Pakistani journalist. One said the sender was “in love with you, irrevocably, irreversibly.”

The drama between Ms. Pushkar and Mr. Tharoor was covered heavily on India’s 24-hour news channels. In interviews, Ms. Pushkar sounded despondent and sometimes dazed.

She told The Indian Express, a popular newspaper, that her husband had been in a “rip roaring affair” since April, and that she would seek a divorce. “That woman pursued and pursued him,” she was quoted as saying. “Men are stupid anyways.” She then added: “For all you know she is a Pakistani agent.”

The journalist, Mehr Tarar, denied having an intimate relationship with Mr. Tharoor, and responded on her own Twitter account, “I am not an ISI agent,” referring to Pakistan’s main spy agency. “Or CIA. Or Mossad. Or even the dead KGB. May I go now?”

Ms. Pushkar and Mr. Tharoor then issued a joint statement playing down the episode. “We are happily married and intend to remain that way. Sunanda has been ill and hospitalized this week and is seeking to rest,” they said. The statement also vaguely suggested that the messages in question from their accounts had been “unauthorized.”

On Friday, he returned from a major gathering of the Congress Party to a suite at a luxury hotel in New Delhi, where he found his wife dead, fully clothed and lying on the bed, said Abinav Kumar, his personal secretary. He said there were no signs of foul play.

Mr. Tharoor, formerly a top United Nations official, was one of the first politicians in India to use Twitter intensively, and infuriated many Hindus in 2009 when he sent out a message describing traveling in coach on a flight as “cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows.” Hindus revere the cow, and the post almost cost him his political career.

On Friday night, Sunanda Puskhar was being discussed in the media and trending on Twitter as people posted messages conveying shock and sadness over her death, with many commenting on the role the social media played in her last days.

Suhel Seth, a public relations specialist and a friend of the couple, said on TV that Twitter had caused the “decline of many” and that now it had led to the “demise of a very, very fine human being.”

Ms. Tarar, the woman accused of pursuing Mr. Tharoor, wrote about the announcement of Ms. Pushkar’s death on Twitter: “I just woke up and read this. I’m absolutely shocked. This is too awful for words. So tragic I don’t know what to say. Rest in peace, Sunanda.”