With controversy surrounding Sunanda Pushkar's stake in the Kochi IPL team, her father today said she has faced many ordeals in her life and pleaded that she be left alone.
"Sunanda has gone through many ordeals and faced a troubled life. She should be left alone", her father Lt Col Dass told PTI.
The 48-year-old Kashmiri girl, who has been linked to Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, has been in the news after it emerged that she has been given a free equity of around 19%, valued at Rs 70 crore in Rendezvous Sports World, which heads the consortium that owns the IPL Kochi team.
Tharoor is reportedly planning to marry Sunanda after divorcing his second wife, who is a Canadian.
Dass, who had a confrontation with a group of journalists at their Channi Himat residence after they tried to chase the family for their reaction, said, "I plead for her privacy. Please leave her alone. We have finally got her settled after a great effort. We do not want any more troubles for her.
"Please understand the agony of a father. My daughter has suffered a lot in the past. I don't want to remember all that. I want her life to be a happy one devoid of troubles", he said, adding "It is wrong on the part of the media to forcibly chase for statements."
Sunanda, who graduated in 1987 from Women College Srinagar and later earned a hotel management diploma, had migrated along with her family from their ancestral village Bommai in the Kashmir valley after their house was set afire by militants in 1990.
She was married to a Kashmiri boy Sanjay Raina, who worked in a hotel in New Delhi, her relatives said, adding that she later divorced him.
Later she left to Dubai where she married fire fighting equipment dealer and event manager Sujit Menon of Kerala, they said. He later died in a road mishap in Delhi.She has a 15-year-old son, the relatives said.
