Indrani Mukerjea, in pure white, sporting dancing pearl jhumkas, bobbed about the accused box, occasionally floating up front to whisper urgent suggestions to her lawyer Ranjeet Sangle as retired cop and prosecution witness Dinesh Kadam gave her a long look. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel returns to cover the Sheena Bora murder trial after 18 months.
Indrani is in a buoyant and energetic frame of mind these days -- in a full-on Mood Positive. She has a tell-all book titled Unbroken out, that she terms as an 'eet ka jawab kalam se' and appears in media interviews all over the place, when she is not kick-boxing, doing yoga, or travelling, visiting temples, or floating in shikaras on Srinagar's Dal Lake.
Kajal Sharma, personal secretary of Indrani Mukerjea told CBI that she had refused to forge Sheena Bora's signature in a resignation letter to Reliance's Mumbai Metro.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
Then came the electrifying climax of Tuesday's hearing. Pasbola showed Sharma copies of cheques that had been deposited at the bank with Indrani's signature on them. He accused Sharma of forging Indrani's signature and collecting the money for herself. In the back Indrani stood up in the accused box and very pointedly nodded her head up and down and mouthed, "She did!".
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.
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.'
She continued to cry, harder, feebly dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief she had received, and declared painfully: "He is hurting my emotions!"
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?
'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...'
'Give him a chance to live,' Peter's lawyer told the court.
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.
'When the forensics have collapsed, approver is clearly proved to be a liar from the beginning to the end... Does the prosecution genuinely believe that we ought to remain in judicial custody despite showing that their own story is not being corroborated by evidence, for another 192 witnesses?'
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.
After 800 days, is it a little clearer that Accused No 1 through 4 are responsible for her death?
How much more gray or bald would Inspector Alaknure have become when we see him next? Will Peter still be wearing white shirts and khaki trousers and eating large lunches? Will Judge Jagdale be still in charge of the case? Who will be the prime minister when Alaknure appears in court next?
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.
One always ponders over why the witnesses should not have poor memory when answering cross examination questions or recounting events that occurred six years ago. Too many witnesses seemed to have drunk some Harry Potter-esque Philosopher's Stone magic elixir that has Botoxed their fading memory to make it as good as new again.
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."
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
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.
Indrani's words were quick, her hand gestures quicker. She kept pointing to certain paragraphs in their consent terms.
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!)"
In the 25 odd days that he has appeared before CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale, you have experienced the entire range of emotions just observing him. Everything from pity to irritation. To bafflement. And shock. You have scoured his face, gazed into his eyes, watched his expressions and body language, searching vigilantly for motives. And come away no wiser. Who is Shyamvar Rai? Does anybody know?
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.
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.
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.
One couldn't help feeling a certain melancholy viewing these now vagrant documents and photographs that would never be rightfully cherished. The pictures spoke to you. They offered slices of extinguished lives. They breathed sadness too, for what could have been and will never be. The sweet promises that Life made and insolently, arrogantly never kept.
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.
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.
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.
'After Indrani's arrest did you go to the police and say I did this kind of forgery?'
Lawyer: 'Did YOU not ever feel scared?' Shyamvar Rai: 'I am a driver, I said okay. Madam said it is your job...'
'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.'
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