File Photo- Sunanda Pushkar

NEW DELHI, JAN 17- A day after  Twitter controvery, Union minister Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead at 8.30 pm IST in New Delhi’s Leela Hotel, where she had moved due to construction work in her house.

Initial reports suggest that Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor may have committed suicide by hanging herself. The cause of death is unknown and will be known only after the post-mortem. Police sources say that she was found sprawled on a bed in room 345 at The Leela Palace hotel in south Delhi.

Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, had posted a series of private messages between Shashi and Pakistani columnist Mehr Tarar on his timeline.

Pushkar was unhappy after reading the messages. She claimed that Mehr had been stalking Shashi and that she was an ISI agent.

Shashi Tharoor claimed that his Twitter account had been hacked and the Tharoors issued a joint statement on Facebook telling the media to respect their privacy.

Earlier, Tharoor had said she was undergoing treatment. “My wife’s illness means i need to be with her & will miss all 5 events of Jaipur Literary Fest 2014. Have promised to atone in 2015,” he tweeted a few hours before she committed suicide. She was suffering from Lupus.

Sunanda’s timeline revealed that she was very depressed after learning about her husband’s conversations with Mehr Tarar.

Earlier in the day, Tharoor was present at the day-long AICC session which ended around 5 PM.

Sunanda’s first husband Sanjay Raina was a Kashmiri but the marriage did not work, resulting in a divorce. Later she married a Kerala businessman, Sujith Menon but he died in a road accident.

Shashi Tharoor married the Dubai-based entrepreneur Pushkar in a typical Malayali wedding ceremony in his ancestral home at Elavanchery village in Kerala in August 2010. They held their reception in Delhi.