Tough nut to crack: Police struggles with Indrani Mukerjea during interrogation

A murder case that gets murkier the deeper you go, has the nation glued to their television sets. The main accused in the case — Indrani Mukerjea, the former CEO of INX Media — was interrogated by the Mumbai police for the second time on Thursday. Indrani allegedly killed Sheena in ‘cold blood’ by strangling her, but the police has not yet been able to ascertain the real motive behind the murder.

Indrani Mukerjea was interrogated by Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria for over nine hours on Thursday. But the cops at the Khar police station were pretty flummoxed at the disposition of the ‘cold and calculated’ Indrani. “Indrani has proved to be a tough nut to crack even for a team of experienced interrogators as she has been skillfully answering the questions. She has been curt with her replies and this forced investigators to confront her with questions that emerged from the statement of Peter Mukerjea’s younger son, Rahul,” a police officer told The Hindustan Times.

According to The Hindustan Times, since the start of the probe, Indrani has maintained a cool composure reiterating that Sheena was her sister who had moved to the US. It was only after she saw her driver that Indrani relented and confessed that Sheena was her daughter from an earlier marriage.

Sources added that Indrani turned out to be quite a struggle even for seasoned interrogators. That’s when Rakesh Maria personally arrived to take over the interrogation. Though the investigators are yet to reach definite conclusions on the motive of the murder, all angles including Indrani’s dislike of Sheena’s alleged relationship with Rahul and the financial aspect, are being probed

“While being interrogated about her past relationships, Indrani broke down and spilled the beans. She told the police about her relationships with Siddharth Das and Sanjeev Khanna before marrying Peter Mukerjea. When questioned further, she told us about how her father forced himself on her during her childhood… she later said she gave birth to Sheena when she was 17. It was the result of her physical relationship with her father,” a police source told Ashwin Aghor of Catchnews.

Indrani has been questioned twice by the Mumbai Police. Indrani’s constantly changing statement on the case forced the officials to call the police commissioner for help and Maria personally came down to interrogate her on Tuesday night (25 August) and then again on Thursday at the Khar police station.

“We have a fair idea of the motive of the murder. However, the third accused (Khanna, a former husband of Sheena’s mother Indrani Mukherjea) is yet to reach Mumbai and be interrogated. Only then, will we be able to tell you about the motive,” Maria told reporters after interrogating Indrani, her driver and Rahul Mukherjea at the suburban Khar police station.

With the arrest of Khanna and his suspected presence in Mumbai on the day of the murder, police are looking into financial angle as well, police sources said.

Khanna and the driver SP Rai are believed to have told the police that Indrani, had conducted a recce of the place in Raigad district (near Mumbai) where Sheena’s body was to be dumped a day before the murder on 24 April, 2012, PTI reported.

Indrani’s father Upendra Kumar Bora disputed his daughter’s claim that murdered Sheena Bora was his daughter. “Sheena is not my daughter. I am her grandfather,” said 80-year-old Bora whose name was said to have been given by Indrani as father in the birth certificate of Sheena, who was born in February 1989.

Khanna, who had divorced Indrani, is believed to have told the Mumbai police in Kolkata that he was in the car in which Sheena was allegedly strangled, but claimed to have slept through the crime.

This apparently contradicted the arrested driver’s claim before police that Indrani and Khanna had strangled Sheena in the car after giving her a spiked drink in a hotel room in Mumbai.

Then the body was taken to a village in Pen tehsil of Raigad where it was burnt with petrol. Khanna had reportedly come to Mumbai on 23 April, 2012, a day before the murder and took a flight back to Kolkata on 25 April, according to police sources.

The police wants to further question Khanna and Indrani’s associate to understand the case better. Reports also added that the duo’s financial transactions will be vetted too. The police will also try to find out whether the money from Sheena’s account was siphoned off by Indrani and Khanna.

“We are only on the second day of our investigation. Once the third accused (Sanjeev Khanna) comes, we will be in a better position after questioning him. Everything is not possible within 48 hours,” said Rakesh Maria, asking the media to be “patient”.

With inputs from PTI