In a significant development that will come in handy for the prosecution to nail the main accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, key accused Indrani Mukerjea’s former driver Shyamvar Rai on Wednesday informed a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court that he wanted to turn approver and disclose “certain truths” about the brutal murder of Sheena committed on April 24, 2012.
Within days after he wrote a two-page letter to the CBI court offering his readiness to reveal the truth and seeking pardon in the case, Rai — who was part of the execution of Sheena’s murder — told Special Judge HS Mahajan that he wanted to share the facts relating to the commission of the 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 told the special court.
Rai, whose arrest by the Mumbai police on August 21, 2015 for alleged possession of 7.66 mm pistol had led to the arrest of Indrani Bora and other accused in the case, told the court that he was under “no pressure, threat or coercion” to reveal the facts in the case and was “repentant” for his act.
When the judge briefly posed queries about the murder, Rai said that Sheena was killed by strangulation. The judge directed the CBI to file its reply on May 17 over Rai’s plea to turn approver in the case.
Early this week, the Special Judge had pulled up the Thane jail officials for their failure to produce Rai before the court and warned them of contempt proceedings, while directing them to produce the latter before him on Wednesday.
Rai had written to the CBI court last week in which he had said he wanted to “reveal truth” and seek “pardon” in the case. This is not for the first time that Rai has offered to “reveal the truth” in the Sheena Bora murder case. Based on a letter written by Rai to a city magistrate’s court offering to “reveal the truth”, a city court had in the second week of November 2015 recorded Rai’s statement under the provisions of Section 164 of Criminal Procedure Code, which unlike a police statement is admissible in court. The Magistrate’s court had sent Rai’s statement to the trial court subsequently. At that time, the issue of Rai wanting to turn into an approver was still in the realm of speculation.
The CBI - which took over the investigations into the Sheena Bora murder case from the Mumbai police on September 29 - had on November 19, 2015 filed a comprehensive charge-sheet, running into 1,000-odd pages, against Indrani Mukherjea, her second husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai.
On that same evening, the CBI arrested former CEO of Star India and co-founder of INX Media Pvt ltd and Indrani’s husband Peter Mukherjea in connection with the sensational crime.
The chargesheet, 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.
The CBI’s chargesheet in the case had come a week after the magistrate’s court 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.
During his confession, Rai reportedly spelt out the roles played by Indrani, her second husband Sanjeev Khanna and himself in the murder of Sheena Bora.
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.