Sanjeev Khanna confesses complicity in Sheena Bora murder

August 29, 2015

Mumbai, Aug 29: Investigations into the Sheena Bora murder case picked up pace on Friday as police recovered the 24-year-old’s skeletal remains as well as her passport while Sanjeev Khanna, former husband of Indrani Mukerjea, confessed to his complicity in the crime.

Sanjeev
Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria told reporters late on Friday about Khanna’s confession and the recovery of Sheena’s passport from Dehradun, nailing the lie that she had gone to the United States for higher education.

Sources close to the investigation said what Kolkata-based businessman Khanna testifies is crucial and could send the case on another track altogether. Khanna, who was remanded to police custody till August 31, had earlier said he was sleeping when Sheena was murdered and found her dead in the vehicle.

“This morning we have recovered the skeletal remains of Sheena Bora. We have also recovered her passport from Dehradun. This would negate the theory that Sheena went to the US,” Maria said.

Maria spoke to the media after Indrani her driver Shyam Rai, who has confessed to his involvement in the grisly murder, Khanna and Sheena's brother Mikhail Bora were jointly interrogated by Mumbai Police.

Sheena’s mother, INX media co-founder Indrani Mukerjea, is in police custody since Tuesday, accused of murdering her daughter on April 24, 2012, with the help of ex-husband Khanna and the driver.

For three years, Indrani had told friends and family that Sheena, who she said was her sister, had gone to the US to study. Rai’s arrest on an informer’s tip-off had exposed the murder.

Police chief Maria did not elaborate from where in Dehradun the passport was recovered, but that is where Sheena’s boyfriend Rahul Mukerjea lives. Rahul has already been questioned by Mumbai police. He is former Star TV CEO Peter Mukerjea’s son from his first marriage.

Rahul and Sheena were engaged to be married and neither Peter nor his second wife Indrani were in favour of this.

Soon after Sheena went missing, Rahul had asked Indrani how Sheena could travel to the US when he had her passport. It is still not clear why a missing person complaint was not registered at Khar or Worli police stations when Rahul had approached them with his claims in April 2012.

Sources say Mumbai Police are now scouring the e-mail and phone call records of Indrani and Khanna to unravel the missing links in the run-up to the murder. Investigators also suspect the involvement of two more people in the murder mystery after Rai’s version of the events was found to be riddled with holes.

“Our teams have gone to other parts of the country for investigation. Further investigation is going on,” said Maria.

Indrani has gone silent since Friday afternoon and is not cooperating with Mumbai police officers. Sources said she refused to answer questions after a city court allowed her lawyer to meet her in police custody.

But police managed to record the statement of Sheena’s brother Mikhail, who landed in Mumbai from Guwahati where he lives with his maternal grandparents. Police took him to JJ Hospital where his blood samples were taken to match with Sheena’s DNA.

In the evening, Peter Mukerjea visited Khar police station to record his statement. He has denied knowledge of Sheena’s disappearance or murder but has flip-flopped on whether he knew Sheena was his wife’s daughter, and not sister – as was rumoured earlier. But police sources said he had little knowledge of the murder being plotted or executed because he was in London with adopted daughter Vidhie on the day of the murder.

Police sources say investigators are focusing on the financial or property angle that might have led to the murder. Forensic and cyber experts have been engaged to solve the three-year-old case.

A skull and some bones were exhumed from the site where Sheena’s body was dumped in Raigad, 120km south of Mumbai. These were sent to JJ Hospital, where in 2012 Raigad police had sent body parts that had been recovered from the site.

On Friday afternoon, Indrani and former driver Rai were taken to various spots to reconstruct the sequence of events on the day Sheena was killed, sources said.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 27,2024

keralaCMdaughter.jpg

The Enforcement Directorate has filed a money laundering case against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan, her IT company and some others to probe a case of alleged illegal payments made by a private mineral firm to her and the company, official sources said Wednesday.

The agency has registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is expected to summon the people involved, the sources said.

The ED case has been booked after taking cognisance of a complaint filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), an investigative arm of the Union corporate affairs ministry, they said.

The case stems from an Income Tax Department investigation that alleged that a private company called Cochin Minerals And Rutile Ltd (CMRL), made an illegal payment of Rs 1.72 crore to Veena's company-- Exalogic Solutions-- during 2018 to 2019, even though the IT firm had not provided any service to the company.

The Karnataka High Court had last month dismissed a plea filed by Exalogic Solutions against the probe initiated by the SFIO.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 25,2024

surendrarahul.jpg

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will face Kerala BJP chief K Surendran in the high-profile Wayanand constituency this Lok Sabha election.

Wayanad, a Congress stronghold, has been with the party since 2009. Mr Gandhi won it in 2019 and retained his Lok Sabha membership, having lost his Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani.

His rival this time, Mr Surendran, has the significant task of challenging the Congress-Left binary in Kerala's political landscape. Both the Congress and the Left are in a national alliance though they remain rivals in this southern state.

Surendran has contested all three Lok Sabha elections since 2009 and also four Assembly elections. In 2021, he contested from Konni and Manjeshwar seats simultaneously. 

In 2019 general elections, Mr Surendran finished third in Pathanamthitta constituency behind the Congress and the Left. He had lost the 2016 assembly polls from Manjeswaram by merely 89 votes. He also contested a bypoll in 2019, but lost it as well.

He was appointed to head the BJP Kerala unit in 2020 and became the face of the protests against the entry of young women into Sabarimala years ago.

Mr Surendran, who is from Kozhikode, figured in the BJP's fifth candidates' list, which also named actor Kangana Ranaut and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

Wayanad is the second Kerala seat to see a battle of titans after Thiruvananthapuram, where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will face the three-time Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

The BJP has also fielded former vice-chancellor of Sree Sankara Sanskrit University K S Radhakrishnan from Ernakulam and actor-turned-politician G Krishnakumar from Kollam. T N Sarasu, a former educator, will contest from Alathur in Palakkad.

The highlight of the BJP's fifth list was the electoral debut of actor Kangana Ranaut from Mandi in her homestate Himachal Pradesh. The list, which named 111 candidates in 17 states, also featured new joinees like industrialist Naveen Jindal and Mr Gangopadhyay.

Mr Gangopadhyay, who joined the BJP recently after taking voluntary retirement, is the first former judge to join electoral politics. He has been fielded from Tamluk in Bengal and will face Trinamool's Debangshu Bhattacharya, a youth leader who had penned the party's "Khela Hobe" song.

Varun Gandhi, a sitting MP from Pilibhit, has been dropped and his seat has gone to Jitin Prasada, who switched to the BJP from the Congress in run-up to the election. His mother Maneka Gandhi has been fielded from her current seat, Sultanpur.

Actor Arun Govil, who played Ram in popular TV series Ramayan, will contest from Meerut. Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey and General VK Singh too were part of the list.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 21,2024

modiwhatsapp.jpg

New Delhi, Mar 21: Election Commission (EC) on Thursday directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of Narendra Modi-led government to put an end to bulk WhatsApp messages labelled 'Viksit Bharat Sampark.' It has also sought a compliance report immediately from the ministry.

EC had received several complaints that such messages are still being delivered on citizens’ phones despite the announcement of Lok Sabha elections and the model code of conduct (MCC) entering into force.

In response, the govt informed the commission that although the letters were sent out before MCC came into force, some of them could have possibly been delivered to recipients with a delay because of systemic and network limitations.

In the past few days, several WhatsApp users have received messages from 'Viksit Bharat Sampark' seeking feedback and suggestions from the public. 

The message comes with a PDF that has a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioning government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ayushman Bharat, Matru Vandana Yojana, etc, and seeking suggestions from the citizens over government initiatives and schemes.

The letter which addresses users as 'my dear family members' had sparked political controversy. Congress has called the PDF file attached with the message a ‘political propaganda’.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.