Sheena Bora Murder Explained
Every once in a rare while, a story comes our way that punches us in the gut, shocks us out of our settled assumptions, stokes a primal curiosity and leaves us bewildered with every grotesque twist and turn. It appears to walk a thin line between fact and fiction and sweeps aside far weightier issues that should deserve our attention. The Chinese and Greek economies are in dire straits, our stock markets are tanking with the rest of the world, the rupee is in free fall, Europe is facing a massive refugee crisis for which it was unprepared, Gujarat burned, Manipur is burning and the battle for Bihar is beginning to boil, but we have been transfixed by the bizarre spectacle of a former media baroness being arrested for allegedly killing her own daughter three years ago and getting rid of the body in the jungles with the help of an ex-husband and a driver. Why?
It may seem like a macabre fascination with a diabolical crime involving high society, or PLUs if you will, but there is more to it than that. "The average person who has been socialized to respect life, and who also possess the normal range of emotions such as love, shame, pity and remorse, cannot comprehend the working of a pathological mind that would compel one to abduct, torture, rape, kill...,"- Scott Bonn, Drew University, the U.S. of A. He wrote of why people are fascinated by serial killers and the incomprehensibility of such actions that drives people to try and understand the reasons and motives of those accused of such horrible minds.
This could very well also be said of the alleged murder of 25-year-old Sheena Bora by her mother Indrani Mukherjea and her accomplices in 2012. The crime Indrani is being accused of, although not completely unheard of, questions our basic inferences of human nature. Add to that the emerging "back story" of Indrani and we have an extremely compelling mystery at hand. While it is for the investigators to figure out the crime and establish the truth, the several stories cropping-up (from various sources), seek to piece together the roller-coaster life and times of the woman at the centre of it all. And through that, try and get a sense of the whats, whys and hows of the Sheena Bora-Indrani Mukherjea saga.
The timeline of events follow thus:
1968- Born in Guwahati to Upendra Kumar Bora and Durga Rani Bora;
1983- Clears Class X examination from St. Mary's Guwahati, scores over 80 per cent in four subjects; Joins Cotton College, Guwahati, alma mater to the who's who of Assam;
1984- Meets Bishnu Chaudhury, then a law student. They date for a while;
1985- Shifts to Shillong midway through her inter and joins Lady Keane College; Meets Siddhartha Das, a young executive at a Shillong restaurant named Chirag;
1986- Returns to Guwahati with Siddhartha, who starts living in her Sundarpur house. Tells parents they're married; Indrani's father tries to help Siddhartha by opening a restaurant for him, but it doesn't take off;
1987- Daughter Sheena is born. She's named after the chief protagonist of the 1984 Hollywood film, Sheena;
1988- Mikhail is born. Reportedly named after Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev;
1990- In June, Indrani moves to Kolkata, saying she wants to study further. Siddhartha is evicted from the Guwahati house soon after;
1993- Submits an affidavit in court giving the custody of her children to her mother; claims they were born in 1989 and 1990; Marries Sanjeev Khanna, a regular at the prestigious CCFC Club, after a brief romance;
Moves from her PG accommodation to Khanna's house in Hastings in Alipore and
becomes a regular on the club scene;
1996- Starts HR firm INX Services in Kolkata with an office near Park Street Post Office;
1997- Daughter Vidhie is born;
2000- Indrani and Sanjeev start drifting, and then falling apart;
Meets ad theatre personality Alyque Padamsee, who is impressed by her and urges her to move to Mumbai;
2001- Moves with Vidhie to Mumbai, where Padamsee becomes her step-up into the city's high society;
2002- Meets Star TV CEO Peter Mukherjea at a party hosted by Suhel Seth. The two start dating soon after; Divorces Khanna and marries Mukherjea. Is now first lady of the television entertainment industry;
Gets letter from parents, asking for financial support to raise Sheena and Mikhail. Agrees to help;
2003- Peter officially adopts Vidhie and raises her as his own daughter; Her HR firm grows by leaps and bounds in the media industry, acquiring big clients;
2006- Brings Sheena with her to Mumbai and enrols her in St Xavier's College. Mikhail moves to Pune to complete his education;
2007- Starts INX Media with Peter. They raise funds and rope in Vir Sanghvi as the face of their proposed news channel;
2008- The Wall Street Journal names Indrani as one of the 50 global women CEOs to watch out for; Entertainment channel 9X's ratings plummet. The Mukherjeas have a falling-out with Sanghvi, leading to him and several others walking out;
An enquiry is ordered by the Government into the financial dealings of INX Media but it never really takes off;
2009- The Mukherjeas sell their stake in INX Media. A government probe later finds evidence of financial impropriety in the transaction;
Peter's son Rahul returns to Mumbai from London. He and Sheena start dating, leading to acrimony in the family;
2010- Peter and Indrani move to Bristol where Vidhie is studying and occasionally return to their Mumbai flat;
2011- Sheena gets a job in Mumbai Metro One, a part of Reliance ADAG Group;
2012- Sheena is allegedly killed on April 24 by Indrani, her ex-husband Khanna, and driver Shyam Rai. The body is allegedly dumped in Raigad;
Rahul goes to Khar police station, saying Sheena is missing, but no FIR is filed. Indrani tells him she's moved to the US;
2015- The Mumbai police get an anonymous call from Meerut saying Sheena has been missing for three years. Investigation begins;
Shyam Rai is arrested in an illegal arms case on August 21. He allegedly confesses his role in the Sheena murder;
A body found in Raigad in 2012 is exhumed. On August 25, Indrani is arrested by plainclothes cops while visiting an orphanage;
Her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna is also picked up by the police on August 26 in Kolkata;
Mumbai police chief takes charge of the case and starts sitting-in on interrogations;
Indrani denies any role in Sheena's killing, insists she is in US. Peter, Mikhail, Rahul among those questioned by the police; and Sheena's father Siddhartha surfaces. Says he and Indrani were never married. The plot thickens, as police work on preparing a charge sheet.
The case has been taking a puzzling new turn every day. But apart from questions such as who is whose daughter, and who is seeing whom – which have added to the media frenzy surrounding the story – there are serious gaps still to be filled about more crucial issues, such as motive, the modus operandi, and even the murder itself.
The case for the Prosecution will now depend on the rigour of police’s forensic evidence, and a lot hinges on the DNA test report of the body that was exhumed in Raigad. For, as things stand, even the identity of the victim has not been proved. Given that Indrani’s key defence is to maintain unflinchingly, even when confronted with Khanna and Rai, that Sheena is alive in the US, establishing the death will be a crucial first step. The DNA report will also determine if Indrani is indeed Sheena’s mother. And it may, depending on the post-mortem and how clear the DNA evidence is after more than three years of decomposition, even reveal the manner of death.
The second key evidence will be the computer from which Sheena’s fake resignation letter was allegedly sent after she had been killed, and Sheena’s cell phone from which 11 text messages were sent to Rahul, asking him not to seek her out. Call records that place Khanna and Indrani in conversation 11 times on the day before the alleged murder, and the cell tower data that places them in Raigad after Sheena was killed, are also crucial to the Prosecution. And so is Sheena’s passport, recovered from Rahul’s house in Dehradun that militates against the theory of her living abroad.
The third element will be witness testimonies. Key witnesses include Rahul, who attempted to file a missing person’s report at Khar police station; the driver, who is expected to turn approver; Peter, who will need to prove his ignorance of the alleged plot to kill Sheena; and Mikhail, who claims there was a plot being hatched to kill him as well. The police have been filling the gaps with testimonies from anyone or anything that can corroborate their circumstantial evidence. From shop attendants who sold the props used in the murder, the doctor who conducted the post-mortem, CCTV footage from Hotel Hiltop in Worli that would allegedly show Indrani and Khanna working in collusion, and the policemen who did not register an FIR when the unclaimed body was first discovered in Raigad in 2012.
The picture that emerges, after several interviews and investigations across Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Guwahati is one of an eventful life that began in the backyard of Guwahati and went through several transformative makeovers before she ended up as the suave and polished first lady of Indian television - until the horrific twist in the tale. The police and media circus is still throwing up more questions than it is answering. The motive, the modus operandi, the sudden reconciliation of Indrani and Khanna, are all unclear. Is this a debauched family squabble? Is it all about money? Why did Sheena have to lose her life?
And, perhaps the most unsettling question of all, did a mother really sever the most umbilical of bonds to murder her daughter in cold blood? It is a script that would make any sitcom writer in Mumbai proud. Unfortunately though, it all seems real, as real as what television could come up with, if not more. As the investigation makes progress and more sordid details spill out, the Indrani saga will leave us with larger questions about society, crime and human nature.
At the heart of this grand tamasha, being played out almost in slow motion, Indrani sits on the precipice, a sword hanging over the head. In the end, is this Indrani as Medea, who resolved to kill her own children? Or Indrani as Icarus, who flew too close to the Sun? Or, as modern-day fables go, does the Indrani story hold the mirror to an ambitious nation longing for success, about the dark alleys that could follow the unbridled thirst for pelf and power? Hark back to the Indrani who wanted to be the sheep that looked the other way. Was she a wolf in lamb’s clothing?
Whether Indrani is guilty or not, it will push us to dissect notions such as ambition, greed, insecurity and hatred among others, in the context of our personal and professional lives in an aspirational and changing India. It may not make for a pretty picture. But then, not everything in the mirror can look good, can it?
