Mumbai: While state forensics prepares to test afresh samples sent by the Pen police three years ago, probe into Sheena Bora’s murder is moving at a frenetic pace to prove both intent and method of her alleged murderer mother Indrani Mukerjea.
Startling revelations have been the order ever since news of this murder broke early this week. In custody are former INX News founder Indrani Mukerjea, her second husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai.
While the police claim that Sanjeev Khanna has confessed to his complicity in the crime, the focus is now on Indrani’s son and Sheena’s sibling Mikhail Bora and Indrani’s present husband Peter Mukerjea’s son by a previous marriage Rahul. Rahul had an affair with Sheena, which Indrani disapproved of.
Mikhail has also told Mumbai police that he was in Mumbai the day of the murder and that his mother also wanted to bump him off by spiking his drink. He had managed to escape that day, he has told police.
Read on:
1. Senior journalist Vir Sanghvi has claimed that Indrani, a former colleague at INX, which became News X Media, had confided to him that her stepfather Upendra Bora had molested her as a child. He said Indrani’s biological father had left home when she was a child. Her mother married his brother Upendra soon after and “refused to protect her from him”. There is another theory going around that Upendra might be Sheena’s biological father, which he has denied. Upendra has said Sheena and Mikhail were children of Indrani’s first husband Siddhartha Das.
2. Mumbai Police chief Rakesh Maria, who is personally helming the probe, has said Sheena Bora’s passport has been found. This rubbishes Indrani’s claims that she had packed off Sheena to the US.
3. Meanwhile, former STAR India chief and Indrani’s present husband Peter Mukerjea has told police he should have taken his son Rahul seriously when he warned him that Indrani might be hiding a lot of things from him. Peter has maintained that he believed his wife 9.9/10 times on domestic matters. He also said Sheena had told him she was the daughter and not Indrani’s sister. There is skepticism among police whether Peter Mukerjea was really in the dark as he claims to be.
4. It is learnt Indrani persuaded the employee of a firm she was associated with to forge Sheena’s signature on her resignation letter and another to her landlord ending the tenancy lease. At the time of her death, Sheena was working with Mumbai Metro One Private Limited. The reason behind the resignation was “personal”, a police source has said. The letter to the landlord said Sheena was moving abroad for better prospects.
5. A website has claimed that a “lonely and failing” Peter wanted to come back to India from the UK and take a last shot at the media business. Peter reportedly confided to a friend that this had angered Indrani who was not keen on coming back. Another point of friction between the duo was Vidie Mukerjea – Indrani’s daughter by Sanjeev Khanna whom Peter had legally adopted. Indrani felt Vidhie’s social life was “going haywire”.
6. Sheena’s lover Rahul is in a bit of a spot today because he claims Sheena’s passport is with him. How did Sheena go to the US then? And why did he not pursue this with Indrani? More persistently? He has told police that Indrani always threw a fit when he asked how Sheena had gone to the US when the passport was with him. Rahul has also told police that the duo got engaged in December 2011. The ceremony happened in Rahul’s mother Shabnam’s Dehradun house. Reports quoting Dehradun neighbours state Rahul had become a reserved person after 2012 and kept to his mother’s 20-acre home. He had aspirations to be a model and an actor but he returned to Dehradun in 2012.
