The car in which Sheena Bora was allegedly killed was on Saturday traced, while questions cropped up of a cover-up by Raigad police for not registering a case of murder or accidental death three years ago when a partially-burnt body, believed to be hers was found.
“We have traced the car. The car had changed many hands in three years and we are yet to recover it,” said a senior police official.
Meanwhile, Mumbai Police continued the interrogation of three main suspects, Sheena's mother Indrani Mukerjea, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyam Rai all of whom are to be taken to the spot in Pen tehsil of Raigad district where the body was found a month after the murder in April, 2012. Police said Khanna and Indrani were giving evasive replies. The police also sought call data records of the three accused.
Police are also interrogating Indrani’s son Mikhail Bora at a hotel in suburban Bandra in the murder case. They are probing Mikhail’s claim that just hours before Indrani and Sanjeev Khanna met Sheena Bora on April 24, 2012 and took her for what would be the last drive of her life, Indrani had also allegedly drugged her son, Mikhail.
Mikhail has claimed that on the pretext of discussing a property deal, he was given a spiked drink in his hotel room in Worli by Indrani and Sanjeev, who then left to meet and murder Sheena. By the time they came back, the suspicious, groggy Mikhail had fled.
Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding the murder took a new turn with a media report claiming her brother Mikhail operated her social media accounts, sent her resignation letter, and cancelled her rented flat's lease well after her death. Telegraph quoting an unnamed relative from “Sheena's mother side” has reported that Mikhail did this at his mother Indrani's behest. The police had earlier claimed that the resignation letter was written by a woman, who was apparently an employee of Indrani .
In another major development, the Raigad Police admitted that no due procedure was followed when Sheena's remains were first found on May 23, 2012. In a startling disclosure that may have a bearing on the ongoing investigations Raigad Police admitted that they had neither registered a First Information Report (FIR) nor filed an Accidental Death Report (ADR), after they found the highly-charred body of Sheena in the jungles of Gogade Khurd Village near Pen town on May 23, 2012.
Upset with the “botch-up” in preliminary investigations into the sensational murder case, Maharashtra's Director General of Police Sanjeev Dayal ordered an inquiry into the “lapses” in the initial investigations and promised action against the erring police officials.
A day after Dean of the JJ Hospital Dr TP lahane disclosed that his hospital could not determine the “age, sex and cause of death” of Sheena from the “pieces of bones” submitted to the hospital on May 25, 2012, Raigad District Superintendent of Police (FSP) Mohammed Suvez Haq came clean and conceded that neither an FIR was registered nor an ADR was filed by the local police after the recovery of a body (purportedly that of Sheena) from the jungles of Gogade Khurd village near Pen town on May 23, 2012.
Addressing a news conference at Alibaug, Haq - who took over as the Raigad DSP early this year - said: “Before sending the mortal remains of a deceased for an autopsy in May 2012, the Raigad Police did not register a crime or a report of accidental death. … My superiors (DGP) have asked me to probe this and I have prepared a factual report and sent it to them”.
Replying to a query, Haq said: “Inspector General of Police (Konkan Range) has ordered me to conduct an enquiry into the lapses in the initial investigations. I will complete it and send across the report to our superiors at the earliest.”
Asked why the Raigad Police had handled the initial investigations in such a casual and lopsided manner, Haz said: “An enquiry is on and this is not the right time nor am I the right person to comment on why a case was not registered.”
Giving details of what transpired after the recovery of the body from the jungles located in the neighbourhood of Pen town in Raigad district, the DSP said: “(on May 23, 2012), the Pen police received information about an unidentified dead body found in the nearby jungles. Three police personnel went to the spot. The inquest panchnama and body panchnama were done, a doctor was called and the post-mortem was conducted. Before burying it, samples were collected from the body. The samples were later sent to the Sir JJ Hospital in Mumbai for examination.”
Police have also collected the blood and hair samples of Indrani and Mikhail Bora, her son from her first marriage Siddharth Das, and sent them to the Central Forensic laboratory (CFl). A report is expected from the CFl early next week.