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 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.
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."
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.'
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.
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?
Pasbola wound up his cross examination, tabling a new narrative in the murder case. That Sheena Bora had been murdered not by her mother. But by her brother.
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.
The ripping off the lid, that Mekhail did, on the chain of episodes that lead up to his sister's murder, while condemning Indrani for her actions, for the first time, paradoxically, allowed a more human -- if flawed and complicated -- picture to emerge of Indrani, allegedly The Woman Who Killed Her Own Daughter and shocked a nation.
A special court on Tuesday opened the statement of 'secret witness' Ravina Raj Kohli, former president of Star News, from a sealed cover and handed it over to the defence lawyers.
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.
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.
Indrani chose at that moment to wave a folded chit from the accused enclosure. It distracted Bharti, who looked at her sharply for a split second before turning back to Pasbola. The chit was collected from Indrani and her lawyer Gunjan Mangla slipped it to Pasbola. He looked at it, quietly laughed in disbelief and continued with his cross examination.
Indrani Mukerjea, key accused in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case, has "confessed" to her role in the crime, while her husband, ex-Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea, underwent another round of marathon grilling today even as police tries to crack the intriguing case.
Shyamvar Pinturam Rai and Pradeep Waghmare. Both erstwhile employees of Peter and Indrani Mukerjea. In the witness stand on Monday, Waghmare came across as a cheerful, straightforward man who is attempting to clamber his way towards prosperity. In the witness stand on Friday, Rai shed his customary jauntiness and broke down weeping, begging forgiveness from CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale.
Here are the latest updates in the case in which cops have said that they have a 'fair idea for the motive'
As Peter sits outside the court with his sister, Indrani walks in with a request. It has been three months since Peter has started speaking to Indrani again, after a long silence of two years.
Pasbola had a number of queries about the nails of the corpse found at Gagode Khurd. Did it have nails? Nails, in a case of strangulation, are key because they often have particles and skin beneath them to show the victim had been grasping something as s/he was strangled.
In the charge sheet, the agency said that prime accused in the high profile murder case, Indrani Mukerjea, was not happy with the love affair of Rahul and Sheena.
Indrani kept Peter informed on phone about the selection of spot for disposing her body and recce conducted for the same.
In the witness box, on bald embarrassing display, was not just Sub-Inspector Ganesh Dalvi, but the entire system of police investigation too.
The state government has ordered a probe as to why the police had not filed a first information report or an Accidental Death Report when Sheena's body was first found at a forest in Pen taluka of Maharashtra's Raigad district on May 23, 2012.
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.
Seeing Indrani in court with her perpetually sunny demeanour and beaming face is sometimes as unreal an experience as making sense of court delays.
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.
Devulkar had a certain abnormal vagueness about him that was unreal and defied belief. That came across in both his slightly too easy-going, extra-cooperative manner and the ragged nature of his testimony.
Ganesh Dhene said there had only been two or three mango trees in the grove, from where he found the skeleton, which he specified had no flesh on it.
'If I have to write a letter I will give it to the media. They will put it out.'
'Indrani gave a mirthless laugh on spying The Suitcase, from the accused enclosure and, in sign language, gestured the impossibility of anyone fitting in such a small bag.'
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"...'
'As Rai spoke, in an unbelievably dead pan, almost off-the-cuff tone, about helping plan the murder of two youngsters, drugging them with vodka and whiskey spiked with dava (medicine), smothering one, dragging a body in rigor mortis out of a car, burning a corpse, destroying evidence, and so on, it felt like he was discussing nothing more surprising than the intricacies of the weather.'
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?".
Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani, arrested in Sheena Bora murder case, had approached a senior Mumbai Police officer in 2012 seeking help to trace the call location of Sheena.
Mekhail hopped off the bench in a hurry and turning his back to Indrani, stood at the window. Indrani ignored him too. Mekhail is getting married later this year. His mother will, of course, not be in attendance. Nor, of course, would he want her to be there, if she could.
She continued to cry, harder, feebly dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief she had received, and declared painfully: "He is hurting my emotions!"
'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.'
Here are the developments in the murder case which has taken explosive twists and turns since Indrani's arrest on Thursday night.
Without a moment of hesitation, Rai jumped up on his rickety wooden stool in the witness box. He then drew his legs close to his body and wrapped his arms around his knees and finally tucked his head into his knees demonstrating the fetal position.
'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.
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.
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