India needs to be technologically and militarily prepared to defend itself from both Pakistan and China, alerts Ramesh Menon.
'You can be sure that the Pakistanis knew when the Indian Air Force aircraft took off, which type these were, and what their likely targets were.' 'The question was: How would they determine that the IAF wanted to fire, and when to bounce them?', notes Shekhar Gupta.
And while the owner of the Chevrolet, which held Sheena's remains, will be examined on October 16 in Judge Jagdale's court, it is Indrani's response to the prosecution's reply to her bail application that will be the focus of everyone's attention.
Clusters of policemen and television journalists alertly anticipated the arrival of Mumbai's joint commissioner of police, who, it was confirmed by most people I asked, does not visit court often. No one could remember when they had last heard of Deven Bharti appearing as a witness in a murder trial.
CBI Special Prosecutor Bharat B Badami presents the first part of his arguments countering Peter Mukerjea's November 2018 bail plea.
In a setback to Maharashtra's former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, a special court on Saturday rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation's plea to drop his name from the list of accused in the Adarsh scam case.
The lesson Waghmare sternly received on Monday from CBI Investigating Officer K K Singh and CBI Prosecutor Bharat Badami about the way a witness must answer questions from the defence seemed to have had only a marginal effect on him. On Tuesday the timid former office boy still chose, unpredictably and remarkably, to answer many a question in the manner of his choosing. He told the room categorically that he had asked Indrani's former secretary Kajal Sharma not to forge Sheena Bora's signature on her resignation letter.
'People wondered aloud why she had given up on the aging, getting-day-by-day-more-infirm avatar. And was freshly blooming.'
Maharashtra former chief minister Ashok Chavan, charge-sheeted in the Adarsh scam, on Wednesday looked set to be let off the hook, with the Central Bureau of Investigation moving a special court seeking approval to drop his name as an accused in the case following governor's refusal to sanction his prosecution.
Indrani and Peter Mukerjea seemed more at ease on Wednesday, maybe with the INX Media interrogation over temporarily, chatting cheerfully and easily amongst themselves, and with former husband Sanjeev Khanna, at the back of the courtroom, in the accused enclosure.
Ever since Indrani's bail plea was denied by the judge her security has been stepped up. The message was clear. If she felt that unsafe she could get all the security she needed. But in jail she stayed.
Judge Jagdale, with a severe expression shadowing his face, looked sharply at Manoj Patil, Airtel's nodal officer, and told him plainly: "It is difficult to digest what you are saying (about) giving call data, but not giving call timings and durations."
'With folded hands, on humanitarian grounds, if she can get temporary bail on medical grounds so she can get treatment.' 'If she dies, the whole trial gets derailed.'
That answer, the strangest of all till date in this courtroom, set off a ripple of excitement, surprise and muted amusement among those present, including Accused No 1 Indrani Mukerjea.
Indrani is easily the most striking woman arriving in the court complex from jail on trial days. For those who don't know who she is, there is absurd puzzlement written large on faces when they bump into her. When she reaches or leaves the premises, one notices heads swivelling in jaw-dropping curiosity, as did a pair of transsexual undertrials who crossed her path at the last hearing of 2018, who were, not surprisingly, a less unusual sight than Indrani.
Noise levels began to climb and everyone else in the room stared agape as the fracas escalated, including the trio of accused at the back. Peter, Sanjeev and Indrani stood at the edge of their enclosure craning to see the spectacle.
'I am an old man. 64 years... Never used influence.' 'I am not a politician or a criminal. What influence?' 'Retired. I could not protect myself even (from fabricated charges)?' 'Have no money now either.' 'I don't want to die in custody in disrepute.'
Tuesday was the last that Courtroom 51 saw of Shyamvar Rai, accused No 3 and approver in the Sheena Bora murder trial. True to form, Rai's final hours in the witness box were rather acrimonious. His cross-examination at several points turned downright ugly.
The Central Bureau of Investigation was on Friday directed by a special court in Mumbai to begin arguments on framing of charges in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case from the next date of hearing due in mid-September with the judge saying he will "expedite" the trial.
A mere pair of shoes sets off the kind of harsh condemnation Indrani draws in these corridors of justice. That she being a woman who killed her daughter -- never mind that she is an undertrial and the crime has not yet been proven -- apart from making her an object of curiosity, also makes her, by perception, more evil than the men that flood these corridors, facing trial for similar or worse crimes.
Each time they held the leafy bedsheet over the window for a few seconds, a clearer but very grey visage of Indrani came into view. In the barely discernible image, Indrani seemed to look tired and downbeat. But then the bedsheet would be taken away and Indrani would disappear into the darkness once more.
'I returned to jail at 4.45. I was body searched and sent back to my cell.' 'A bowl of dal was kept there covered.' 'Another guard gave me a tablet and I became unconscious.' Accused One spoke about a similar incident happening to her in October 2015 and also with a bowl of dal.
Indrani exclaimed excitedly, her face lighting up like a little girl's: "I know him soo0o well." Sanjeev Khanna, Accused No 2, jokingly suggested to Badami: "Influencing the witness!" Badami retorted good humouredly: "She can't influence witnesses. She can only influence you and Peter."
Trepidation made its home firmly on his face on Thursday, announcing its presence with lines of anxiety and the repeated jumpy widening of his eyes.
as the trial proceeds, Peter is beginning to look more and more haggard while Indrani by contrast is blossoming. Khanna appeared exhausted and more down and out than usual at this hearing.
Peter told Judge Jagdale that there was only jewellery in the locker -- some of it that he had "gifted to my wife" and some that "she had received" at the time of their marriage, that the CBI had already inspected the locker in his presence and were aware of what was there.
Much to his surprise, Peter finds Sanjeev indicating he should sit in the middle, next to Indrani. This spot is normally occupied by Sanjeev, Indrani's former husband, who has probably found himself a willy-nilly barrier between the warring couple. The Mukerjeas, clearly, had matters to discuss.
'Could the Khar police and the CBI have tinkered with the driver's call data records?' 'And did their fiddling with the information not make it that they were tampering with the lives of people that were in the balance as a result of this case?'
He is, at the closing of 2018, a man quite different from the Peter Mukerjea who entered judicial custody three-and-a-half years ago. He is a man not yet convicted of a crime, but already suffering for it, like the hundreds that enter these courts every day and the thousands Peter shares jail space with in a central Mumbai prison.
'How much fashion she used to do.' 'Now all gone in the water!' 'All good things have to come to an end.' 'And all bad things have come to an end.'
There it lay, a photograph on the desk under a stapler, and later a stamp pad, forgotten, done with, like its subject, a Mumbai Metro One employee who vanished overnight.
It turned out that Indrani, who was wearing the Navratri Day 2 green, was fasting for the festival. That caused the impish CBI prosecutor Badami to ask her police detail, "looking for salvation?".
When Sheena got down from his car on the evening of April 24, 2012, Rahul says she told him, "Bye. Love you. See you later."
'I kept photographs of everyone. Because I was working for them.' 'Madam, Saab...' Shyamvar Rai, the approver in the case, said in a tone that tried to suggest that that would be a routine practice for a driver.
Indrani is clearly in charge in her little corner. She is speaking rapidly to a not-very-tall, pot-bellied, balding man, whom she repeatedly, decisively, asks, "Have you understood?" The tone is that of a boss talking to an employee. The words "cheque" and "two lakhs" float by.
If Pasbola seemed like he was testing Rai on his high school physics, Rai on the other hand, had relocated himself to a classroom of philosophy, offering beautifully inexact answers, arrived at after deep thinking.
'If I have to write a letter I will give it to the media. They will put it out.'
Peter's lawyer paints Indrani as a master manipulator, looking to waste the court's time and use the media to manipulate public perception about his client. 'She is "trying to exonerate herself," the lawyer argues, and accuses Indrani of "trying to lay a trap" for Peter "and attempting to malign his reputation"...'
'I ask for bail in the name of justice.' 'Give me a chance to stay alive and see the trial till its end.'
Over the weekend and Labour Day, a change seemed to have come over the former secretary and her memory had all but deserted her. Not unexpectedly, Kajal Sharma had lost much of her exactness. Her vocabulary had shrivelled to four or five words.
