The Sheena Bora Case

Manish Pachouly

Description

The murder of twenty-five year old Sheena Bora is a spine-chilling reminder of our times and how greed and ambition clearly dictate our relationships. Apart from the brutality and meticulous planning of the murder in April 2012, Indrani Mukerjea, the main accused, also managed to keep it under wraps for three long years, making everyone believe that Sheena had shifted to the US and did not want to be in touch with anyone. It was a tip-off from an anonymous source that the case came into light in August 2015 and continued to make headlines with the arrest of Indrani, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver, to finally the arrest of her second husband Peter Mukerjea.
This is just the beginning of the trial. A long battle awaits the high-profile Mukerjeas as they will walk down the maze of the legal system, the days of hearings and the nights of suspense, the media shutterbugs and the ignominy of jail – hoping for a release, praying for an absolution – that may or may not await them at the end.
Along with a detailed chronology of days in 2012 when Sheena first disappeared and the subsequent web of lies created by Indrani to make people close to her believe in her story, to the exhuming of Sheena’s remains from Raigad district in 2015, to the subsequent arrest and interrogation by the CBI, the book looks at the main characters, circumstances and also the trail of money in Sheena’s account in Singapore that may have a link to the brutal murder.

Sujets

• justice
• Raigad
• Money trail
• True Crime
• List of country legal systems
• Singapore
• Non-fiction
• Murder
• Greed
• True Story
• Court
• Ambition
• Trial
• Singapour
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 08 février 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788193600948
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Manish Pachouly is a Mumbai-based senior journalist with more than two decades of experience in print media. He has worked with Mid-Day , the Times of India group and Hindustan Times . At HT he was heading the crime and legal team in Mumbai. As an investigative journalist, he broke many stories on cricket betting racket, major income tax raids, and hawala operations.
  OTHER LOTUS TITLES Ajit Bhattacharjea Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah: Tragic Hero of Kashmir Aitzaz Ahsan The Indus Saga: The Making of Pakistan Ajay Mansingh Firaq Gorakhpuri: The Poet of Pain & Ecstasy Alam Srinivas Women of Vision: Nine Business Leaders in Conversation Amarinder Singh The Last Sunset: The Rise & Fall of the Lahore Durbar Bertil Falk Feroze: The Forgotten Gandhi Hamish Mcdonald Ambani & Sons Kunal Purandare Ramakant Achrekar: A Biography Lucy Peck Agra: The Architectural Heritage Lucy Peck Delhi a Thousand Years of Building: An INTACH-Roli Guide Madan Gopal My Life and Times: Munshi Premchand M.J. Akbar Byline M.J. Akbar Blood Brothers: A Family Saga M.J. Akbar Have Pen, Will Travel: Observations of a Globetrotter M.J. Akbar India The Siege Within: Challenges to a Nation’s Unity M.J. Akbar Kashmir: Behind the Vale M.J. Akbar Nehru: The Making of India M.J. Akbar The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo Param Vir: Our Heroes in Battle Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo The Sinking of INS Khukri: What Happened in 1971 Madhu Trehan Tehelka as Metaphor Monisha Rajesh Around India in 80 Trains Noorul Hasan Meena Kumari: The Poet Peter Church Added Value: The Life Stories of Indian Business Leaders Peter Church Profiles in Enterprise: Inspiring Stories of Indian Business Leaders Prateep K. Lahri Decoding Intolerance: Riots and the Emergence of Terrorism in India Rajika Bhandari The Raj on the Move: Story of the Dak Bungalow Ralph Russell The Famous Ghalib: The Sound of my Moving Pen R.V. Smith Delhi: Unknown Tales of a City Salman Akthar The Book of Emotions Shahrayar Khan Bhopal Connections: Vignettes of Royal Rule Shantanu Guha Ray Mahi: The Story of India’s Most Successful Captain Sharmishta Gooptu Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation Shrabani Basu Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan S. Hussain Zaidi Dongri to Dubai Sunil Raman & Rohit Aggarwal Delhi Durbar: 1911 The Complete Story Sunetra Choudhury Behind Bars: Prison Tales of India’s Most Famous Thomas Weber Going Native: Gandhi’s Relationship with Western Women Thomas Weber Gandhi at First Sight Vappala Balachandran A Life In Shadow: The Secret Story of ACN Nambiar A forgotten Anti-Colonial Warrior Vir Sanghvi Men of Steel: India’s Business Leaders in Candid Conversation Zubin Mehta Zubin Mehta: The Score of My Life FORTHCOMING TITLES Rajesh Bedi The Last Word Aruna Roy The RTI Story: A People’s Movement for Transparency
 

Manish Pachouly

 
ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2018
First published in 2018 by
The Lotus Collection
An Imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd
M-75, Greater Kailash- II Market
New Delhi 110 048
Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000
Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.rolibooks.com
Copyright © Manish Pachouly, 2018
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Roli Books. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
eISBN: 978-81-9360-094-8
All rights reserved.
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.
 
Contents
Acknowledgements
1. A Chance Meeting
2. The Rise of a Media Tycoon
3. The Daughter Who Was Never Wanted
4. The Murder
5. The Cover-Up
6. Next Target—Mikhail
7. ‘Indrani, a Good Samaritan’
8. From Pori to Rani—The Success Story
9. The Hostile Couple
10. Sheena—The Troubled Child
11. INX—The Beginning of an End?
12. The Big Siphoning
13. Peter—The Inconspicuous Suspect
14. Life in Jail
15. The Notorious Spot
16. Postscript
 
Acknowledgements
A big thank to my daughter Samika, who was my first critic and gave some valuable suggestions, while I was writing this book, amid her hectic studies for her board exams.
Many thanks to Shantanu Guha Ray, the India editor for Central European News (CEN) for making me write this book.
Special thanks to cheerful Shreya Chakraborti, Neelam Narula and Aditi Chopra for shaping up the chapters and pushing me to get more and more exclusive information.
My sincere gratitude to Advocate Shreyansh Mithare; Charul Shah and Debasish Panigrahi of the Hindustan Times , and senior journalist Vivek Agrawal for helping me with important documents and valuable inputs.
Last but not the least, thanks to Priya and Kapil Kapoor of Roli Books for putting their trust in me.
 

I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
— Lady Macbeth
Macbeth , ACT I, Scene 7
A 2nd wife of her 3rd husband is charged along with her 2nd husband of killing her daughter from her 1st husband who was having an affair with the son of her 3rd husband from his 1st wife!!! —WhatsApp forward which went viral after the Sheena Bora case surfaced, August 2015
 
A Chance Meeting
T hree years after the murder of her daughter, Sheena Bora, a journalist’s chance meeting with Indrani Mukerjea revealed the confident and composed side of the ex-business tycoon. This was still a time when the world didn’t know that young Sheena was dead.
Roshni Olivera, a senior journalist with Bombay Times , a supplement of the Times of India in Mumbai that first introduced the Page Three in the media, had an encounter with Indrani in April 2015. The two were flying from New Delhi to Mumbai. After Roshni struck up a conversation with her co-passenger, she was pleasantly surprised to know Indrani’s identity. She wondered for a moment how the once high-society queen was travelling in economy class.
There was nothing incongruous about Indrani. Well-dressed and confidently articulate, with a hint of affluence, she betrayed no sign of anxiety or the deadly secret that she had been hiding from the world for the last three years.
‘In April 2015, I was flying from Delhi to Mumbai; I was actually returning from Bhutan after an official trip. There was this man in his early thirties sitting to my left and this lady who looked like she was in her mid-forties, sitting to my right. She was an attractive woman, dressed elegantly in a sparkling white cotton salwar suit. I observed her and felt that I must buy a similar salwar–kurta soon… It’s so pretty. She was reading a financial magazine and seemed to be immersed in it. A tad serious, an intellectual sort, I thought to myself,’ recalled Roshni about the chance meeting.
‘She looked very familiar though; I wondered if I had seen her on TV in news debates, perhaps Arnab Goswami’s shows,’ she said adding, ‘The man sitting next to me started coughing and in a few minutes, he was shivering. We realised he had fever. That’s when the lady got up, pulled her bag from the top shelf and got a tablet, probably a fever medicine, and gave it to him.’
Indrani’s gesture impressed Roshni. ‘That was nice of her, I thought. She then smiled and asked me if I was a Delhiite or from Mumbai. I told her I was very much a Mumbaikar. She was warm and friendly, and in the course of our conversation, I told her I worked for ToI.’ Roshni continued, ‘She said she used to be in the media business too. And I said, “No wonder you look familiar.”’
Her co-passenger finally introduced herself. ‘My name is Indrani Mukerjea,’ Roshni said recalling the meeting. She was thrilled to meet her then. ‘After all, Peter and Indrani Mukerjea were stalwarts in the media business at one point in time. And even if their 9XM [INX Media] channels [had] failed at that time, there still was an aura around this society couple. Well, I was slightly taken aback because we were travelling economy, and I perhaps expected her to be flying business class.’
In the next forty-five minutes, the two women kept chatting about everything—from news channels to anchors to saas–bahu soaps. ‘We also spoke about Peter and her winding up the media business and moving to London,’ Roshni said, adding, ‘I vividly remember how calm she looked even as she spoke about leaving it all and going away to London. There was no sense of disillusionment. She said it was a call they took, and they have been fine with their decision. Indrani also spoke fondly about her daughter Vidhie and said with her now being busy with studies, it was just Peter and she at home,’ Roshni said.
Narrating further, Roshni said, ‘I recount asking her if Peter was a Christian and if he wasn’t, why the name Peter. She gave me his full name and said “Peter” was what his friends called him a long time ago and so he stuck to that.’
Indrani spoke well, was very articulate and seemed composed throughout, recalled Roshni, and added, ‘I asked her if she planned to shift back to Mumbai sometime soon, perhaps start a production house, and Indrani said she won’t shift back but would keep coming.’
‘I am working on a script; I would like to make a film,’ was what Indrani told the senior journalist.
The plane was about to land and the two exchanged numbers, deciding to stay in touch. ‘Once we were at the airport, she moved away; perhaps somebody had come to fetch her. The next day she SMSed saying it was a pleasure to meet and that she was