Indrani looked cheerful and upbeat and announced she had quite recovered from her wounds...
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.
The wills and some of the emails which are a part of the charge sheet stated that Indrani had bequeathed around 20 properties to Vidhie.
It will be his fifth birthday in jail as an undertrial. He was arrested two days before his birthday in 2015. Tuesday also marked Peter's fourth year in jail.
The former media executive, who is now lodged in Byculla women's jail in Mumbai, was admitted to the J J Hospital on Friday night for chest pain.
The statements of the Mukerjeas were recorded by the Enforcement Directorate, which is probing the money laundering angle in the case, while the CBI had only recorded Indrani's statement before a magistrate as per section 164 of the CrPC, they said.
This may bolster the CBI's case that after murdering Sheena in April 2012 and disposing of her body, Indrani, her mother, used to send emails or text messages in her name.
In just 18 frames, the photograph of the dainty Sheena, with her winsome smile and starry eyes, dissolved, flesh falling off her facial bones, into what the CBI alleged was her corresponding yellowed, morose-looking skull with hollow, haunting eye sockets.
Mukerjea, was brought to the state-run hospital in central Mumbai around 7.20 pm, after she complained of headache, double vision and restlessness
The car in which Sheena Bora was allegedly killed was on Saturday traced while questions cropped up of a cover-up by police in not registering a case of murder or accidental death 3 years ago when a partially-burnt body believed to be hers was found.
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?".
The chargesheet mentions that Peter knew that his wife Indrani allegedly issued threats to his son Rahul and her daughter from her first marriage Sheena.
The judge said he went through the case diaries and there were certain facts which he couldn't disclose to the defence. On the basis of those facts, Mukerjea was not granted a bail.
Dramatic minutes like the sentencing by a judge or a round of artful cross examination hog all the attention in a courtroom. But more noteworthy and infinitely more memorable are the human moments -- Like when a brother and sister hug before a judge. Or the steady support between a husband and a wife in court.
CBI sources said that agency teams swooped down at the residences of Peter and Indrani, two each in Mumbai and Goa, Indrani's ancestral home in Guwahati, her driver Shyamvar Pinturam Rai's houses in Mumbai and Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, and the residence of Sanjeev Khanna in Kolkata.
'Who is the right Mekhail? Mekhail I or Mekhail II?'
In walked the scruffy band of pirates, without any swagger. Mostly tall or burly men, with weather beaten, resigned faces, the majority were dressed in track pants and tees; a few had skull caps. Some of their T-shirts had messages like 'I'm not in danger, I'm danger' or 'Long Beach California Surfer'.
A local court in Mumbai on Thursday allowed the CBI to question afresh Indrani Mukerjea and two other arrested accused in the Sheena Bora murder case.
It is not often that Goswami's Nation-Wants-to-Know shows become material evidence in a murder trial no less. Nor was it something CBI Special Judge J C Jagdale was wildly enthused about. It had to be done because as he put it to CBI Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil caustically: "Your witnesses gave interviews to channels about a serious crime."
Singh and Badami subsequently took Waghmare to a corner of the corridor outside, where others have no access, and gave him a lecture. The conversation was largely inaudible, except for a phrase here or there. The thrust was unmistakable. Waghmare had to learn not to give such detailed answers to the defence.
Several questions about the crime, his conversations with his wife Indrani Mukerjea and his own statements were put to him during the test by CBI officials at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory.
The sensational Sheena Bora murder case probe tonight acquired a new turn with police claiming that Sanjay Khanna, former husband of Indrani Mukerjea, confessed to his complicity in the crime during a joint interrogation of three accused on a day the victim's skeleton remains were recovered.
Why had the CBI decided to have Waghmare tell the court the tale surrounding this odd trip to Kolkata made for even odder reasons, close to a year-and-a-half after Sheena's murder? To show the kind of person Indrani was? And that the murder of her daughter was not a heat of the moment crime, given Indrani was capable of other odd, suspicious, premeditated acts like this?
Caught in a web of half truths, the Sheena Bora murder case continues to baffle investigators. Here are the top developments of the day.
Indrani alleged she was beaten up and threatened of sexual assault by Byculla jail officials.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports on the Sheena Bora Trial.
The question being silently telegraphed around the court room was: When did this happen? Wasn't this trial about Indrani murdering her daughter to prevent her from marrying Rahul Mukerjea, her husband Peter Mukerjea's son from his first marriage?
'That winsome smile is a key asset. And says a lot about her too.'
Lawyer: 'Did YOU not ever feel scared?' Shyamvar Rai: 'I am a driver, I said okay. Madam said it is your job...'
Sameer Buddha was just the kind of witness Indrani's lawyer Sudeep Pasbola dislikes. Someone, who had temporarily dumped his memory before entering the court. He answered most questions, one after another, one after another, one after another, with a monotonous, deadpan: 'I don't remember.' 'I don't remember.' 'I don't remember.'
The Central Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the sensational Sheena Bora murder case, on Saturday told a special court in Mumbai that prime accused Indrani Mukerjea had informed her husband and former media magnate Peter Mukerjea about killing her daughter on April 24, 2012.
More noticeable than the hue of his shirt was his mast style in the witness box. He seemed to be reinventing the truth every few minutes. He yarned on and on, navigating his testimony further and further away from the facts, but he never lost his aplomb.
'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.'
Finally to end the dispute, Sharma threatened to show her shoes. Pasbola declared regally that he would like to forgo that particular honour. Sharma ignored him. Instead, she bent down, took off her shoe and triumphantly held her prize aloft, and said delightedly, "Yeh dekhiye! (Have a look!)"
'Indrani said she had some things to discuss with Peter, which he digested with minor surprise.' 'He looked mildly dismayed. And refused to sit down next to her, in spite of her welcome.' In spite of months of wariness from Peter's side, the ice was broken.
Indrani called her personal assistant Kajal Sharma from the UK, May 3, 2012, and told her she had to sign Sheena's resignation letter as if she was Sheena signing it. But she had to first practice the signature and send Indrani proof of her proficiency in signing Sheena's name before sending the letter off. Sharma said she was reluctant and told the court that she told Indrani as much, but Indrani demanded it of her.
Taking note of her complaint, a Central Bureau of Investigation court, which is hearing the Sheena murder case, directed the prison authorities to produce Indrani before it on Wednesday.
Fear of Sheena Bora inheriting the entire property of her and her husband in the event of the victim's marriage to Peter Mukerjea's son Rahul is said to be the prime motive for Indrani Mukerjea to do away with her daughter, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation chargesheet in the sensational case.
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.
The 25 odd witnesses that so far had given testimony had not come up with anything incriminating against Peter or the way Shivade characterised it -- "not even a whisper."
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