Sheena Bora murder: Peter Mukerjea says he had no motive, 'ambitious' Indrani 'willing to give up her children'

Mumbai: Media baron Peter Mukerjea, arrested in the Sheena Bora murder case, has filed a second bail plea, contending that the chargesheet doesn’t have “reasonable grounds” to hold him guilty. According to Zee News, Mukerjea said his wife Indrani was “highly ambitious” and was “willing to sacrifice and give up her children to achieve her ambitions”. The Indian Express reported Mukerjea saying that Indrani was not forthcoming about her past relationships and that he did not know that Sheena and Mikhail Bora were her biological children. The bail application states that Indrani is “extremely controlling” and has a tight hold over her employees. “She was very calculative and even resorted to subterfuge in the months of March and April 2012 while tricking Sheena into believing that Indrani was ready and willing to forget the past acrimony and anger and turn into a friend and well-wisher of Sheena, in order to lure Sheena into her plan of murdering her,” the application states, as quoted in The Indian Express. According to an India Today report, the 32-page document filed by Mukerjea’s advocate Kushal Mor also stated that it is “absurd” that a man of Mukerjea’s standing — a “super-achiever” would “knowingly cohabit with a woman with such shady past”. The special CBI court in Mumbai had rejected his first bail application in February. [caption id=“attachment_2525136” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Peter Mukerjea. File Image PTI[/caption] Mukerjea’s lawyer Kushal Mor filed the second bail application in the special court on Thursday. There was no further justification for keeping him in custody as there were no “reasonable grounds” in the chargesheet to believe that “he has been guilty of offences with which he is charged”, it said. As per the chargesheet, Mukerjea’s motive for committing the crime (participating in the conspiracy to murder Sheena) was that he was against the relationship between Bora and his son Rahul Mukerjea. This was “demonstrably untrue and unsustainable”, the application said, citing emails exchanged by Mukerjea and his son in December 2011, which it said proved that Mukerjea was not opposed to Rahul Mukerjea and Sheena Bora’s engagement. The application also said Mukerjea was a senior citizen, suffered from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and his health would deteriorate if he was kept in jail. Peter Mukerjea, whose wife Indrani is the prime accused in the case, was arrested on 19 November, 2015. He is lodged at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai. Other co-accused, Indrani’s former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyamvar Rai, are in the same jail, while Indrani herself is in the Byculla women’s jail. The trio allegedly strangled Bora (24), Indrani’s daughter from an earlier relationship, inside a car in April 2012. The crime came to light last August. with inputs from PTI