Sheena Bora's birthday fell on February 11 and it's been 14 years since she disappeared into thin air. She would have been 39. Nearly one-and-a-half decades later are we patiently inching nearer to knowing the truth of what happened?
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.
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.
Throughout, Mekhail spoke calmly, with hardly an inflection making even the barest attempt to hijack his tone. His tone was so empty it made his narrative all the more touching. And ugly and grey, as the monsoon sky beyond the window.
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.
And then came the chief moment of Friday. If the courtroom had a soundtrack, Beethoven's 9th would be playing, providing a triumphant, dramatic prologue to the production of this last clip. A woman reporter was asking Mekhail about Sanjeev Khanna. He says clearly, without mincing words, emphatically: 'Never seen him. First time I am hearing his name.'
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.
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.
'Who is the right Mekhail? Mekhail I or Mekhail II?'
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.
Mekhail delivered the most deliberate heart-tugging line of the day: "If a son asks his mother for money is wrong, then tell me." At the back Indrani gave one of her most beaming smiles that was meant to convey the exact opposite. This was no mother happy that her son had said he turned to her when he needed money because she was his mother.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder 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?
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."
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.
Indrani kept Peter informed on phone about the selection of spot for disposing her body and recce conducted for the same.
Ever since Mekhail had first entered the courtroom, he had, it would seem, never once looked at his mother, though they were a few metres away from each other. Curiosity, residual regard, memories, anger, none of it, could make him even look at the woman who gave birth to him. Was his hatred so overpowering?
As he was giving evidence, Dr Matcheswalla peremptorily summoned the CBI representative over to the witness box and whispered something. Indrani Mukerjea's advocate Sudeep Pasbola immediately cut in, wondering what he was up to: "Please, please, please." Dr Matcheswalla, looking innocently startled, said: "I was asking if I can order for tea."
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.
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.
Peter said he needed a broom to sweep his cell because, he joked, there are no vacuum cleaners in jail.
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.
All along, Rahul, right till today 10 years later, hung onto his gut feeling that something surely had happened to Sheena.
Not Mekhail. Not Rahul. Not anyone. 'Wouldn't someone have asked?' Indrani asked.
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.
'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?'
'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...'
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!)"
'If I have to write a letter I will give it to the media. They will put it out.'
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.
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.
'That winsome smile is a key asset. And says a lot about her too.'
'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.'
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.
As the weeks go by in this trial, it has emerged that Shyamvar Rai is that rare species of driver whose knowledge of distances, directions and routes surprisingly would not even fill the back of a postage stamp.
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.'
'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.'
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.
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.
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.
'After Indrani's arrest did you go to the police and say I did this kind of forgery?'
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