India's
human resources minister popularly known as 'Minister Twitter' for his
love of the social messaging site, Shashi Tharoor,and his wife have
denied reports they are to divorce after she apparently hacked his
Twitter account and posted messages implying he was having an affair
with a Pakistani journalist. The tweets to his more than two million
followers suggested that he was in the throes of a passionate affair
with Mehr Tarar, a high profile journalist.
Mr
Tharoor, 57, deleted the tweets, claiming his account had been
'hacked'. But his wife, Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, subsequently told two
Indian newspapers that she had published the private messages between
him and Ms Tarar.
She
was also quoted by The Indian Express as saying that she would seek a
divorce after learning that her husband and Ms Tarar had been having a
'rip-roaring affair' since April, which had left her feeling 'destroyed
as a wife and a woman'.
'I completely stand by my tweets, I 100 per cent stand by that,' she told the paper.
One of the published message, which appeared to have been directly sent from Ms Tarar's account, said: 'I
love you, Shashi Tharoor. And I go while in love with you, irrevocably,
irreversibly, hamesha [always]. Bleeding, but always your Mehr.'
|
Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar is at the center of the controversy |
|
|
|
|
Ms
Tarar denied sending the messages and any suggestion that she was in a
relationship with Mr Tharoor. She tweeted that she had 'always praised
Shashi Tharoor OPENLY on twitter. Wrote an op-ed on him. Reviewed his
book. Forwarded tweets. Only b/c [because] NOTHING to hide'.