Sunanda Pushkar death probe: Delhi Police official tasked with studying facilities in FBI labs

New Delhi: A senior Delhi Police official, who has carried the viscera samples of Sunanda Pushkar to an FBI lab in the US, has been tasked with studying facilities in forensic labs there and also the working in police stations so that some practices can be replicated back in India.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Prem Nath, who is in Washington DC, will be staying there for a week and will not only study the system at FBI labs but also keenly see the way a police station works there and will then give a report to Delhi Police top brass so that the good practices can be followed in the national capital.

"He (Prem Nath) is supposed to stay there for a week. Apart from delivering the exhibits to the FBI labs, he was asked that he should also study the systems at the FBI lab and in case we can replicate some of them, which are not available in India so that will be useful for our police forces," said Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi.

52-year-old Sunanda was found dead in her suite at a five star hotel in south Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014, a day after she was involved in a spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar on Twitter over the latter's alleged affair with her husband Shashi Tharoor.

Police had on January 1 filed a murder case and formed an SIT to probe the case. Her viscera samples have been sent to an FBI lab to determine the kind of poison that caused Sunanda's death. An AIIMS report had said that the poison cannot be detected in Indian labs.

Showering rich praise on the officer, Bassi said that Prem Nath is "one of our most competent" officers. He was instrumental in the arrangements in the Commonwealth Games. "He had gone abroad and studied systems there and was able to bring back information about good practices. So we expect him to bring back information on areas where we are lacking so that we can add those systems in our forensic science labs also," he said.

Nath has also been asked to study the systems and processes of one important police station in Washington and see what good practices are prevalent there which can be replicated in our police stations also, he added. Asked if Tharoor would be questioned again in the case, Bassi said, "We have questioned him in detail. It will now be analysed by the SIT and if we will need any clarification that will be sought.