The fall of Sanjeev Khanna: From rich Kolkata biz man to suspect in Sheena Bora murder

Friends on Facebook have reportedly begun unfriending him and those who knew him at the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club (CC&FC) now speak of him anonymously. Sanjeev Khanna, presently a key suspect in the murder of Sheena Bora, was well known among those who frequented Kolkata’s elite club and has left everyone wondering whether he is capable of the heinous murder of which he stands accused. He was produced on Friday at a Mumbai court, which has remanded him to police custody till 31 August. After his father  was reportedly murdered when Khanna was an infant, he was raised by his mother in Hastings, a friend told The Telegraph. He studied at Mayo College at Ajmer, and was later associated with a range of projects in Kolkata with his close school friend Ajay Rawla. [caption id=“attachment_2411902” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sanjeev Khanna after his arrest.PTI image[/caption] Khanna ran a wireless communication business, was part of the setting up of tony restaurant 1658 and also was heading a heritage project to convert the Bawali Rajbari into a hotel, says The Times of India. His company Bawali Estates in an online listing says that it is involved in “(r)esidential property development services, old heritage haveli & hotels development, real estate agents services, consultancy services for property”. Khanna, according to those who knew him, had a gift: The ability to get anything done. Whether it was obtaining permission or getting contractors to work, Khanna was reportedly the go-to man when you were tied up in red tape. A Business Standard report on the Bawali Rajbari notes how Khanna and his long-time friend Rawla brought quarrelling brothers to a table in order to purchase the house which they then began converting into a hotel. “We were operating in the village area, and the panchayat was very helpful. We faced some trouble from some locals, as they were apprehensive about change, but issues were resolved,” Khanna is noted as saying in the article.  But the sharp Khanna, who was able to dance around red tape with consummate ease, was reportedly a ‘simpleton’ when it came to his relationship with Indrani Bora. He reportedly fell “hook, line and sinker”, disregarded the advice of friends who advised him against marrying the placement consultant, and married her. The man who was a regular at the CC&FC, motor rallies and horse races changed after marriage and according to one friend who spoke to The Times of India, it was the effect of his new wife. Khanna who reportedly paid no heed to climbing the social leader earlier  began trying to do it as Indrani constantly “drove him to consciously build contacts with those higher up in the social rung”. “She always wanted to make it big and I never stopped her,” Khanna said, before his arrest in an interview to The Times of India. The couple had a child, Vidhie, who Khanna reportedly doted on. But he was left heartbroken when the couple split and Indrani won a bitter custody battle after they moved to Mumbai. To make matters worse, he was denied access to his daughter, who was legally adopted by Indrani’s new husband, Peter Mukerjea. She then went to the UK for further studies and Khanna reportedly found solace in work. But there were also the drunken brawls. Those who knew him say he was reportedly involved in multiple drunken brawls in the CC&FC in the years that followed. Khanna is presently accused of strangling Sheena Bora when she was allegedly pulled into Indrani’s car on the night of 24 April, 2012. The motive attributed to his actions is  that he didn’t want his daughter to lose out on her inheritance because of Sheena being acknowledged as Indrani’s daughter. However, he told The Times of India that he had no idea that Sheena was his ex-wife’s daughter. He said that he had once seen a photo of a boy and girl in her wallet, but Indrani had told him they were her brother and sister. Since his arrest, Khanna has claimed that he had gone to Mumbai to meet his daughter and was in regular touch with his ex-wife once he landed in the city. But when the meeting didn’t take place late that night, he returned to his hotel; the next morning he accompanied Indrani to Raigad where she wanted to see a plot. According to a report in The Telegraph, he has claimed he dozed off and when he woke up in a desolate area, he was told by Indrani that they were going to the airport. They then had a cup of coffee, after which he was dropped to the airport. However, the police version is that after conspiring with Indrani through multiple calls, Khanna was in the car when Sheena was pulled into it from a road in suburban Bandra in Mumbai. He allegedly strangled her and they were reportedly going to dispose of the body, but changed their plan after spotting a police check-post. They then allegedly took the car back to Indrani’s residence and the next morning, they took it to Raigad where they poured petrol on it and burned it. There are now the Facebook photos on Khanna’s page that Indrani liked and everyone’s reading to check whether he had referred to the murder. And there’s the call that fellow members at the CC&FC dismissed as a drunken one. Khanna on 20 August reportedly called a few friends and said that only a senior minister at the Centre could bail him out of the trouble he was in. But for a man who has used his connections managed to wriggle his way out of any problem, Khanna is now trapped in a mess from which no minister can free him.