Angry wife outs Indian minister's 'affair' on Twitter

In this photograph taken on April 16, 2010, Shashi Tharoor, the then-Indian Junior Foreign Minister, addresses the media at parliament house in New Delhi. The furious wife of the Indian government's top-tweeting minister admitted she had hacked his account to send out messages exposing an alleged affair he was having with a Pakistani journalist. AFP PHOTO/Prakash SINGH 

NEW DELHI, Thursday

The furious wife of the Indian government's top-tweeting minister admitted Thursday she had hacked his account to send out messages exposing an alleged affair he was having with a Pakistani journalist.

The scandal was splashed on the front pages of several newspapers after a curious series of messages appeared on the Twitter account of the suave thrice-married human resources minister Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday evening.

They showed private exchanges apparently between 57-year-old Tharoor and Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar, 45, in which she professed her love for him and he explained that his wife had discovered his adultery.

Sunanda Tharoor, a formerly Dubai-based entrepreneur whom the minister married in 2010, confessed to sending the messages and also dragged up a corruption scandal that nearly wrecked her husband's career.

"That woman pursued and pursued him... men are stupid anyway... for all you know she is a Pakistani agent. Where's love, where's loyalty in this world?... I am so distraught," she told the Indian Express.

Tharoor (@shashitharoor) posted a message late Thursday to his two million followers claiming his account had been "hacked" while Tarar (@mehrtarar) denied having an affair with him in a series of messages.

"Our accounts have not been hacked and I have been sending out these tweets," Sunanda told the Economic Times, while also referring to a cricket scandal in 2010 shortly after her husband entered politics.

Mr Tharoor, a French-speaking former UN diplomat, had to resign from his first ministerial post in 2010 after revelations that Sunanda had been given a free stake in a new cricket team in the money-spinning Indian Premier League (IPL).

Mr Tharoor, a famed author who was once in the running to be secretary general of the United Nations, is the most active user of Twitter in the Indian government and he has been instrumental in encouraging colleagues.

Sunanda told the Indian Express that she would be seeking a divorce, but then appeared to have relented on Thursday, writing on her Twitter account (@sptvrock) that "Shashi an& I are very happy together".