Rakesh Maria's role in Sheena Bora murder case may be due to something more sinister than personal glory

In the din of rumours, lies, facts, fiction and propaganda generated by the Sheena Bora murder probe, nobody bothered to ask the now former Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria a simple question: Why was he taking extraordinary interest in the investigation?

Since the Mumbai cops cracked the case, some say miraculously within days of his trusted man senior inspector Dinesh Kadam’s transfer to Khar police station, Maria has been the face of the story. He visited the police station, interrogated suspects -sometimes for 12 hours - and briefed the media daily with the zeal of a rookie solving the biggest case of his career.

Under normal circumstances, the probe into a murder mystery is supervised by the senior inspector of the concerned station. In rare cases, depending on the sensitivity and nature of the crime, a deputy commissioner-level officer is assigned the responsibility of tracking the case. But, when was the last time we heard a police commissioner get into the shoes of an inspector? Even chief minister Devendra Fadnavis found this odd, prompting him to comment two days ago that he expects police to give such priority to other criminal cases.

To be fair to Maria, rumours of his impending transfer had begun to circulate much before the Sheena Bora case broke. Much before his transfer order was signed by the CM late on Monday night, some of his possible replacements had already started talking about getting the job within a few weeks - though most have been shocked after being pipped to the post by Ahmed Javed, who was never in the race after being overlooked by the previous Congress-NCP government. So, could there be some substance to the argument that Maria wanted to go out in a blaze of glory by taking credit for the Sheena murder case?

But, the former Mumbai CP is no ordinary cop. Super Maria has played bigger, better whodunits. Remember 1993 serial blasts? Who cracked them? Remember Ajmal Kasab? Who was the first Mumbai cop to grill him?

Frankly, for an officer who cracked the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, solving a young girl’s murder would be nothing to boast about in his memoirs. And, an officer who got the first crack at Kasab is unlikely to be jumping around at the idea of interrogating Indrani Mukherjee and her alleged accomplices.

If you consider the basics of the Sheena Bora case, it becomes evident that everyone who was related to Sheena probably has something to hide. It is difficult to believe that a girl could just vanish from Mumbai and nobody, including her stepfather Peter Mukherjea, his son and Sheena’s boyfriend Rahul, who, incidentally, was in possession of her passport, would not even notice it for almost three years. Finally, what happened to all the money that was allegedly siphoned off by the Mukherjeas? It is evident from the current direction of the probe that the focus is on proving Indrani, her second husband and their driver guilty and taking the focus away from the role of the Mukherjeas. Is this deliberate, part of a strategy? Was there more to Maria’s efforts to file a chargesheet before 30 September, when he was scheduled to move out of the commissionerate following a promotion than just the desire to quickly send the case to the trial court? Now that Maria has been kicked upstairs, we may get to know some more details.

For the past few days, Maria has been busy investigating the motive behind Sheena’s murder. Now, it is time to ask some tough questions about his own motive in personally handling the case.