CBI charges Peter Mukerjea in Sheena Bora murder case: Is this direct indictment of Mumbai police or Rakesh Maria?

Media baron Peter Mukerjea was charged with murder and criminal conspiracy in the Sheena Bora murder case. Peter now faces the same charges as wife Indrani Mukerjea, who was arrested by the Mumbai Police in August after the remains of her daughter Sheena were found in a jungle, 80 kilometres from Mumbai.

Peter was arrested on Thursday night and was booked under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code, which relates to causing the disappearance of evidence of offence, or providing false information. It is interesting to note that since CBI took over the murky murder case in September, Peter went from being a person who was merely questioned by the Mumbai police to being the prime accused in the case.

After taking over the case under acrimonious circumstances, the CBI on Thursday filed a ‘1,000-page’ chargesheet in the case against Indrani, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai. It was the latter’s statement that as per Times Now reported, ’nailed Peter’.

Peter had been ’evasive’ when CBI started investigating the case, which eventually led to his arrest, sources were quoted as saying by The Economic Times . The CBI suspected Peter’s involvement after its investigators they figured that the media baron was giving contradictory responses on Sheena’s murder. The Indian Express quotes a CBI official as saying, “She has given enough indications… he knew of the murder.”

This also brings us to a crucial question. Is the CBI arrest of Peter a direct indictment of Mumbai Police and former police commissioner Rakesh Maria? Let’s take a look at how things changed from the time former top cop Rakesh Maria was pulled off the investigation, till Friday when the media tycoon was arrested and charged for murder.

Rakesh Maria’s sudden and swift removal from the post of police commissioner of Mumbai under the guise of him being promoted to the post of the Director General of Home Guards, raised more questions than answers in early September.

As Firstpost reported earlier, a key reason for the ouster, had seemed to be Maria’s overzealous and overprotective investigation into the Sheena Bora murder case that has been making headlines for the past two weeks and which rubbed the Mumbai Crime Branch on the wrong side.

According to sources, joint commissioner of police, Crime Branch, Atul Kulkarni, was miffed at being left out of what would have been a bread-and-butter case for his team.

This disaffection in the crack investigation arm of the city police, apparently led Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to order a discreet enquiry by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) KP Bakshi. The Crime Branch expressed its surprise over the way the case was literally hijacked by the chief. In normal course, this case would have landed up on Kulkarni’s desk within a few days. This is usually done to keep the police stations free from the burden of intricate investigations so as to look after normal law and order duties.

This convention was clearly violated in the Sheena Bora murder case. Maria took personal interest in interrogating the prime accused at the Khar police station thrice. There was heavy speculation that Maria knew Peter and Indrani from earlier, an allegation that was vehemently refuted by the former top cop. Meanwhile, former Mumbai police chief Satyapal Singh had then added meat to the speculation when he told CNN-IBN , “There has to be something, why else the transfer? I have heard he was close to Peter Mukerjea.”

Following the discreet enquiry, which need not have been discreet at all considering that Maria was making no bones of the fact that he had taken over this case, the chief minister chided Maria, in a roundabout way, of course, that he wished the police took such interest in solving all crimes.

“Police have shown a lot of involvement and attention in a case which is in the media spotlight. It should pay similar attention to other cases which do not get media focus,” Fadnavis had told the media .

Maria had himself interrogated the accused , including Indrani Mukerjea and Sanjeev Khanna, which was unusual. As an  NDTV report in September 2015 said, Maria was also regularly holding press conferences about the case despite not having given any interview since he was made Mumbai Police chief.