The plot behind the gruesome killing of Sheena Bora thickened on Friday, as the CBI accused former media tycoon Peter Mukerjea of playing an “active and important” role in the elimination of his stepdaughter and charged him with murder and conspiracy, a day after he was arrested dramatically in connection with the sensational crime.
Fifty-nine-year-old Peter — who has also been charged with destruction of evidence —was produced before Mumbai Metropolitan Magistrate RV Adone, who remanded him in CBI custody till Monday (November 23).
In its application seeking Peter’s custody, the CBI charged him that he conspired with wife Indrani Mukerjea in the murder of the latter’s daughter from her first marriage Sheena Bora, that he had destroyed the evidence like mobile phone and other items belonging to his slain stepdaughter and that he had “misled” his biological son Rahul that Sheena was very much “alive” in “doing well” in the United States.
Seeking a 14-day custody of Peter, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh charged that Peter had played an “active and important” in the murder of Sheena on April 12, 2012. Singh told the court that despite the fact that he was in london at the time of crime, Peter was in “constant touch” with Indrani in the lead up to and after the killing of Sheena. Singh told the court that the CBI wanted to subject Peter to a prolonged
custodial interrogation, as it wanted to establish the financial trial in the case, given that the latter (Peter) had links in various places across the country like Mumbai, Goa, Delhi, Shillong, Kolkata and Guwahati. “The offences committed by the accused (Peter) are very serious in nature. Since he lives in so many places in India and abroad, we need to subject him to custodial interrogation... There are also various financial transactions involved and he has businesses in various States even abroad,” Additional Solicitor General said.
As he read out the remand application in the court, Singh told the court “The accused Peter Mukerjea was found to be involved in the criminal conspiracy with his wife. He tried to mislead his son Rahul into not letting him pursue Sheena Bora’s disappearance. It has been revealed from the recorded conversation of Peter and Rahul that despite the knowledge of Sheena’s death, the accused falsely told his son that he had spoken to her on the phone and she was in the US”.
Singh told the court that Peter and Indrani were in london for better part of April 2012. While Indrani returned to India on April 23 a day before Sheena’s murder, Peter returned to Mumbai on April 26.
“He was constantly in touch with Indrani Mukherjea prior to during and after the incident. Telephone records show conversations of 20 to 25 minutes on the night of Sheena’s murder and the day the body was disposed,” Singh said.
The prosecution’s case has been said that Indrani and other two arrested accused - her second husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai - allegedly “abducted” Sheena between 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm on April 24, 2012, from Bandra (west) in their car and “strangulated” the latter the vehicle 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.
Maintaining that several “important articles” belonging to Sheena were yet to be recovered, Singh told the court that Peter, who was allegedly in the know of the missing articles, may have either concealed or destroyed them to ensure that they could not be found at some point in time in future.
Raising suspicion that the former Star India CEO did nothing to search Sheena after she “disappeared” all of a sudden after April 24, 2014, Singh told the court: “He (Peter) is related to Sheena or she was his family member and if she disappeared suddenly and he makes no efforts to find her but on the contrary he tells his son he spoke to her, makes it a case to be investigated”.
Peter, wearing beige trousers and a striped blue shirt, was produced before the court of Magistrate Adone at 3 pm. The Magistrate asked his name and wanted to know if he had any complaints against the CBI. Peter mentioned his name and said he had no complaints to make against the CBI.
Opposing the 14-day remand demanded by the CBI, Peter’s lawyer Niranjan Mundergi said that there was no need for the court letting Peter remain in the custody of CBI and if it was inclined the court could remand the accused in a brief custody of the investigating agency.
Contesting the Prosecution’s “far-fetched” claim that peter was part of the Sheena murder conspiracy, Mundergi said that his client’s telephone conservations with his wife (Indrani) did not imply that he participated in the murder conspiracy.
“He was busy with his empire (business). He is a British national and when the actual incident took place he was in london. They say he was talking with his wife. Can you jump to any conclusion that he was involved in the murder conspiracy based on conversation with his wifeIJ. It could be that he was trying to pacify Indrani about the relations between Rahul (Peter’s son) and Sheena (her daughter) which she had not approved of),” Mundergi told the court.
Rejecting the CBI’s plea for 14-day custody of the accused, Magistrate Adone remanded Peter in CBI’s custody till November 23 (Monday).
Earlier in the day, the Metropolitan Magistrate transferred the trial in the case to a sessions court here and directed the three accused--Indrani Mukerjea, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai-- be produced there on December 3.
“The case is committed to CBI court and jail officials are directed to produce them to the Sessions Court,” ruled Mumbai Metropolitan Magistrate RV Adone before whom the trio were produced.
Indrani, who was produced before the court along with two other accused earlier in the morning, broke down in Magistrate’s court, seeing her family members.
In her brief interaction with the media outside the court, Indrani claimed: “I have been framed”.
The CBI - which took over the investigations into the Sheena Bora murder case on September 29 - on Thursday filed a comprehensive charge-sheet, running into 1,000-odd pages, against Indrani Mukherjea, her second husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai.
The charge-sheet, containing statements of 150 witnesses, 200 documents and seven statements recorded before magistrate, was filed before magistrate RV Adone at Esplanade court in south Mumbai.
last week, the magistrate’s court had recorded Shyamvar Rai’s confession under section 164 of Criminal Procedure Code (Cr PC) which is admissible as evidence during the trial of the case.
Indrani, wife of Peter Mukerjea, was arrested on August 25 for her alleged role in the murder of Sheena Bora, her daughter from her first marriage with Siddharth Das.
Arrested along with her was her driver Shyamvar Rai A day later, Indrani’s second husband Sanjeev Khanna was arrested from Kolkata. Both Khanna and Rai have reportedly confessed to their crime, during the interrogation carried out by the Mumbai police.
After taking over the investigations in the case from the Mumbai police on September 29, the CBI registered a case against Indrani and two other accused under eight Sections of the IPC, including 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) relating to the alleged murder of Sheena Bora. The other sections under which the three accused have been booked Section 328 (causing hurt by means of poison), Section 201, 202, 203 of IPC (destruction of evidence and giving false information), and Section 2 (25) of the Arms Act.
Indrani and other two arrested accused - Sanjeev and Shyamvar Rai - face the charges of “abducting” from Bandra (west) and “strangulating” Sheena in care on the evening of April 24, 2012 and setting the body on fire in the jungles Gogade Khurd village off the Khopoli-Pen Road in Raigad district on the following morning.
As part of the investigations into the Sheena Bora murder case, both the Mumbai police and CBI, which took over the investigations at a later stage, have been trying to establish the money trail, if any, and the motive behind Sheena Bora’s murder. As part of the exercise, the Mumbai police had begun to look into the allegations that Indrani and her third husband husband Peter Mukerjea made a lot of money from INX Media through questionable means and transferred into their relatives’ accounts, when they exited the company in 2009.