NEW DELHI, July 5 (Xinhua) -- An Indian court on Thursday granted an anticipatory bail to the country's former junior Foreign Minister Shashi Tharoor in his wife's mysterious death case.
Tharoor is facing abetment charges for the death of his 51-year-old wife Sunanda Pushkar whose body was found at a five-star hotel in Delhi on Jan. 17, 2014, just two days after claiming on social media that her husband had been having an affair with a Pakistani journalist.
While granting protection from arrest to Tharoor, also a senior lawmaker of India's main opposition Congress party, from arrest in the case, the court asked him to submit 100,000 rupees (1,500 U.S. dollars) as surety and not to go abroad without its permission.
"The court has given Tharoor anticipatory bail. But my client has been asked neither to tamper with evidence nor leave the country without the court's prior permission. The Delhi Police can't arrest him now in the case," a lawyer representing Tharoor told the media.
In a 3,000-page chargesheet, the Delhi Police had named Tharoor as the only accused. Apart from pressing abetment charges, it has claimed that the senior Congress leader had subjected his wife to cruelty too.
The former minister, a former career international diplomat, insisted he is innocent and terms the charges "preposterous and baseless."