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."
Lawyer: 'Did YOU not ever feel scared?' Shyamvar Rai: 'I am a driver, I said okay. Madam said it is your job...'
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"...'
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.
Her elfin face could be seen and once more after many days the victim of this murder had a face and a presence.
The prosecution's pursuit of this tiny detail was because they believed the charge from Google, on Indrani's account, was to restore Sheena's Gmail account, via the Google account recovery toolkit, since Indrani did not have the password.
The night before Sheena was allegedly killed, 'Indrani Madam instructed me to not send anyone up to her flat.' 'She told me to especially not allow Rahul Mukerjea.'
Indrani, radiant in an immaculate white and gold salwar-kurta that matched the moment, her hair open, a bindi gleaming on her forehead, beamed placidly, fully enjoying this small minute of victory.
In the witness box, on bald embarrassing display, was not just Sub-Inspector Ganesh Dalvi, but the entire system of police investigation too.
After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again. Four or five months later she met her death. Mekhail referred to their last meeting without overt emotion, clear-eyed.
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.
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.
On Thursday, Indrani will be obligated to change into the green uniform sari she receives visitors in, as per jail rules, and meet the gentlemen from the income tax department. She may also at some point on Thursday video conference with Delhi in the INX Media-Karti Chidambaram case where she might become an approver.
Rahul knew this was coming. That 'dirt' would be dug up.
The close-onto four years (since November 2015) Peter has spent in Arthur Road jail, central Mumbai, in judicial custody, have taken their toll, lending him a bit of a melancholy stoop, a laborious gait and a tired face, turning him prematurely into a much older man than his nearly 64 years. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
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.
Indrani was cheering Pasbola on from the back, with little, happy whoops, that she muffled with her chunni. Indrani was in her element on Friday. The defence's cross-examination was clearly going her way and Indrani was delighted.
'Who is the right Mekhail? Mekhail I or Mekhail II?'
'Quite the raconteur, much to the dismay of Courtroom 51's CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale, Christopher 'Doglis' Marquis, a Bandra dog-breeder who was Prosecution Witness No 57 and a panch or witness, seemed to move into the witness box with glee, embellishing every answer that he gave to the lawyers' questions with a variety of additional details.' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
Badami asked Das if Indrani was in the room. Das, whipping out his hand and pointing it at Indrani, announced: "Yes, she is right there." Indrani, who was looking down, through most of the hearing, momentarily raised her eyes, just a fraction and glanced at him. That was the first time either of them looked at each other. Till then, and later, Das refused to look at her, as if he was not able to, either out of anger or revulsion. It seemed mutual. Indrani too pretended throughout like he did not exist.
'There is a communication between Rahul Mukerjea and Sheena Bora.' 'First on the 26th. And then on the 27th and then on the 28th.' 'See the messages wherein Rahul Mukerjea tells Sheena Bora "Baba I am in the car park. Come".' 'And Sheena Bora replies to Rahul Mukerjea: "Five min bas".' 'This explains why none of the bodies matched Sheena Bora...'
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.
'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?'
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.
Peter said he needed a broom to sweep his cell because, he joked, there are no vacuum cleaners in jail.
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."
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.
Dr Gupta handled Shivade's blows with quite some equanimity... So it was often only Shivade down in the mud pit, egging and enticing the doctor to join the fight, while Dr Gupta cautiously kept to the sidelines, barely stepping a toe into the mud.
When the hearings resume January 3, you wonder how many things will change and how many things will remain forever the same, as the Sheena Bora trial moves ahead.
It might have been the season of Basant Panchami, but for Pasbola it was definitely Halloween as he set about scaring the wits out of Rangwala, his tone growing harsher.
Not Mekhail. Not Rahul. Not anyone. 'Wouldn't someone have asked?' Indrani asked.
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.
Indrani's words were quick, her hand gestures quicker. She kept pointing to certain paragraphs in their consent terms.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
'I'm not withdrawing any allegations. I want those CDRs (Peter's call data records).' 'Those are my feelings.'
'Dalvi, you are saying you asked a question, but don't remember the answer?' asks Pasbola incredulously. 'Yes.' 'You are lying.'
Happy with her latest move, Indrani departed from Courtroom 51 with a spring in her step. The woman who hopped up into the jail truck was a cheerful one.
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?
Balbinder Singh Dhami, who has played an inspector, for over a year, in The Zee Horror Show, took on the role of a witness on Monday. It was a part he had no experience of.
Dressed in pink, her hands flying about in eloquent gestures, excitement on her face, Indrani made quite a picture. There was pin-drop silence as she made strong points about why nothing in the hearings had uncovered anything against her. She spoke about there being "Not a shred of evidence... No scientific evidence because it didn't happen!"
