MUMBAI: Deposing for the first time in the Sheena Bora murder case, accused-turned-approver Shyamvar Rai (44; Indrani Mukerjea‘s driver) detailed before the special CBI court on Friday how the murder was planned and carried out in Indrani’s caron April 24, 2012. Rai told the court that the killing involved Indrani strangling Sheena with her hands. He said that after the girl was dead, Indrani sat on her face before telling him: “Sheena has got her three-bedroom flat.”
Rai told the court that in March 2012, Indrani revealed to him on Skype that she wanted to kill her daughter and son Mekhail. “She told me Sheena and Mekhail were trying to defame her by calling her ‘mom’. She disclosed there was a quarrel between her and them over the property. She also said Sheena was having an affair with Rahul, son of Indrani’s husband Peter Mukerjea,” Rai told the court in Hindi.
He said that in the same conversation, Indrani referred to him as a trustworthy man and went on to assure him of a “job for life”, health care for his family and her responsibility for his children’s education. “She also disclosed that one person was going to come from Kolkata to kill Sheena and Mekhail,” Rai told the court.
Rai was arrested in August 2015 in an illegal arms case. During his interrogation, he told the Khar police about the murder, committed in April 2012. Last year, he moved an application wanting to turn approver in the case. The court allowed his plea. Rai, a native of MP, answering special public prosecutor Kavita Patil’s questions, said he had been working with the Mukerjeas since 2004.
Rai told the court that after Sheena’s body was dumped off Pen Road in Raigad, “(Indrani’s former husband) Sanjeev Khanna poured petrol on the body, emptying the can. Indrani madam took out a match box from her pants. She ignited a match stick and threw it on Sheena’s body. Immediately, fire engulfed the body.”
Rai’s deposition, almost a verbatim version of his confession statement before the magistrate’s court, detailed the roles of Indrani and Sanjeev in the planning and execution of the murder and the subsequent disposal of Sheena’s body. The proceedings commenced at 12:30pm and continued until a lunch break around 1:30pm. It resumed at 3pm and went on until 4:45pm. Rai’s deposition will continue on Tuesday, after which the defence will cross-examine him.
Indrani, Peter, and Sanjeev were present during the proceedings and had to sit at the back of the courtroom in the dock meant for the accused. The court turned down Peter’s request to move ahead as the proceedings were inaudible in the back. The trio strained to hear the proceedings through most part of the day.
Referring to Peter only a couple of times during his deposition, Rai told the court that Indrani spoke to him on the phone with reference to Sheena and Mikhael after she conducted a recce of spots to dispose of her would-be victims’ bodies in April 2012.
Rai said that while Khanna caught Sheena’s hair and Indrani was pressing her neck, Rai pressed his hand on her mouth. “Sheena bit my right thumb. I moved my hand immediately from her mouth as blood was oozing out. I clutched my thumb in my fist and sat down on. I heard Sheena making sounds. After some time the voice stopped,” he said.Ascribing reasons to why the plan to murder Mekhail was deferred, Rai said Indrani had remarked that Mekhail was not getting intoxicated despite being administered a large quantity of liquor. “On that, Sanjeev Khanna said it was ok, and they would take care of him after some time. Khanna also said that taking two bodies simultaneously to different spots would be trouble.”
Rai said that before disposing of Sheena’s body the day after her murder, Indrani applied on her lipstick and “did her hair properly”. The aim was presumably to avoid detection by the police on the way to Pen, where the body was dumped
