Accused-turned-approver in Sheena Bora murder case Shyamwar Rai on Thursday informed the Special CBI court here that the mother and prime accused Indrani Mukherjea wanted to kill eliminate both her children — Sheena and son Mikhail Bora— in 2012.
Deposing before the Special CBI Court during the ongoing Sheena Bora murder trial, Rai said Indrani, for whom he used to work as a driver, had told him over skype that she wanted to kill both her children.
“A man from Kolkata would come to Mumbai for killing them. She wanted to have her two children eliminated because both of them were trying to malign her image in the public. She (Indrani) also told me that she had an ongoing property dispute with her children (Sheena and Mikhail),” Rai recalled.
Rai’s deposition was in line with the evidence that he had provided to the court under Section 313 of CrPc.
Rai had been granted pardon and made an approver by the CBI court on June 26, 2016.
Within days after he wrote a two-page letter to the CBI court offering his readiness to reveal truth and seeking pardon in the case, Rai — who was part of the execution of Sheena’s murder — had on May 11 2016 told Special Judge HS Mahajan that he wanted to share the facts relating to the commission of sensational offence.
“I am aware about the acts connected with the commission of the offence and was a participant to the murder (of Sheena),” Rai had told the special court.
Rai, whose arrest by the Mumbai Police on August 21, 2015 for alleged possession of 7.66 mm pistol had brought to light the Sheena’s ghastly murder and led to the arrest of her mother Indrani and other accused in the case, had told the court that he was “repentant” for his act and that he was under “no pressure, threat or coercion” to reveal the facts in the case.
With Rai having been made an approver, there are three accused in the case — Indrani Mukherjea, her current husband Peter Mukherjea and her earlier husband Sanjeev Khanna.
It may be recalled that Indrani and other two arrested accused — Sanjeev and Rai — had allegedly “kidnapped” Sheena between 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm on April 24, 2012, from Bandra (west) in their car.
She was allegedly strangulated in the car on the same evening and that on the following morning they carried the body of the deceased packed in a bag (which had they kept in the rear side of the car) to the jungles Gogade Khurd village off the Khopoli-Pen Road, where they doused the bag with petrol and set it on fire.
Sheena was daughter of Indrani from her first live in partner Siddhartha Das. Incidentally, Sheena was in a live-in relationship with Rahul Mukerjea, the son of Peter Mukherjea.
Indrani — wife of Peter Mukherjea — was arrested on August 25, 2015 for her alleged role in the murder of Sheena Bora, her daughter from her first marriage with Siddharth Das. A day later, Indrani’s second husband Sanjeev Khanna was arrested from Kolkata. later on September 29, 2015, Indrani’s husband Peter Mukherjea was arrested.