Sheena Bora murder: Peter Mukerjea, Indrani brought face to face, quizzed

Police on Wednesday brought former Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea face to face with his wife Indrani and the two other accused in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case and questioned them extensively.

Mukerjea reached the Khar police station in Mumbai on Wednesday morning for recording of his statement. Indrani, her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyam Rai, who were allegedly involved in the murder, were also brought there a little later.

Peter Mukerjea with Indrani

A police team also went to Peter Mukerjea's residence in Worli area even as a team in Kolkata is said to have seized Khanna's laptop that would help in the probe. The police are understood to have questioned the three accused in the presence of Peter and their counsel in perhaps the first such confrontation since Indrani was arrested on August 24 for allegedly murdering Sheena.

Indrani Mukerjea is accused of killing Sheena, her daughter from an earlier relationship, in 2012 over a financial dispute, with the help of her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyam Rai. Mukerjea had gone to the police station last week, but the Mumbai police had refused to accept a written statement from him and he was told that when the police needed, they would call him for questioning.

A local court had earlier extended the police custody of the three accused - Indrani, Sanjeev Khanna and Shyam Rai - till September 5. Peter Mukerjea, who has been married to Indrani for 13 years and set up a media company with her, had first said that he was unaware that Sheena was his wife's daughter and that Indrani had introduced her as her sister.

A few days after Indrani's arrest, Peter amended his version to say Sheena did inform him that she was his step-daughter, but he had no reasons not to believe his wife Indrani's denial of that claim though he found it 'difficult to digest'. He claimed that the same thing was communicated to him by his son Rahul Mukerjea, but he had not believed him as well.

Peter maintained that he vaguely remembered the date when he was told about the fact and it was sometime in 2011. Sheena Bora was engaged to Rahul, Peter Mukerjea's son from an earlier marriage, when she was allegedly murdered on April 24, 2012.

The 24-year-old was allegedly strangled in a car, then her body was burnt and dumped at a forest in Raigad, about 84 km from Mumbai. Her purported remains were found a month later and buried by the police, which treated the body as unclaimed. For three years, Indrani Mukerjea told her family and friends that Sheena had shifted to the US.

On Tuesday, a man named Sidhharth Das, claiming to be Sheena's biological father, surfaced and said that he was not in touch with Indrani.

In Alibaug, a senior Raigad police official said, an 'exhaustive' inquiry was being conducted against the then police officials, who were on duty when Sheena's body was allegedly dumped in forest near Gagode village in Pen tehsil in 2012.