India to probe death of politician's wife

            NEW DELHI, Jan 7 : (Xinhua) -- The Delhi police Wednesday formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor.

            Delhi police chief B.S. Bassi made the announcement a day after he said the 52-year-old's mysterious death at a five-star New Delhi hotel in January last year was a "murder" and it was "due to poisoning".

            "A SIT has been formed to probe the case. We will share details with you as and when things happen," the police chief told the media.

            Asked whether Tharoor, currently a lawmaker of the main opposition Congress party, would be questioned in the case, he said, "Whatever is necessary has been done, whatever will be necessary will be done."

            Local TV channels reported, quoting sources, that the police may send Sunanda's viscera samples to a laboratory abroad to determine which poison had caused her death, including the FBI laboratory in the U.S.

            The Dubai-based businesswoman, whom Tharoor married in 2010, was found dead in her hotel suite in January last year, just days after a tiff with her husband over his alleged affair with a Pakistani scribe.

            Initially, the police had treated the death as a suicide case.