Shyamwar Rai, the driver of Sheena Bora murder accused Indrani Mukerjea, who recently turned approver in the case, may not have given a truthful account of the events leading up to the sensational murder in April 2012, according to several CBI and Mumbai Police documents.
A close examination of the contents of Rai’s statement made under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which was finally shared with the three other accused persons, including Indrani and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna, reveals that his so-called confession is at variance with those of other witnesses.
Statements made by an accused under Section 164 of the CrPC are based on the principles of truth and which the magistrate ascertains by judging whether he or she has made voluntarily and not under duress from the investigating authorities.
But Rai’s statement does not appear to pass the tests of being either truthful or genuine when compared to the statement (made under Section 164 of the CrPC) of Kajal Sharma who was Indrani’s personal secretary.
Rai’s Contradictory Claim
Rai says that Indrani and he left Marlow, the residential complex in Worli where the Mukerjeas lived, on 24 April, 2012, between 9 am to 10 am, before visiting Rakhangi Medical Store to purchase “six bottles of medicine” (supposedly sedatives), a pair of rubber gloves, vodka and McDowell’s whiskey bottles, Bisleri bottles, three pairs of shoes from a Bata store in Century Market and two sarees. He was then instructed to return to Marlow.
But Sharma claims in her statement, made
under oath, that she arrived at the Mukerjeas’ Marlow apartment at 11.30 am (in
her statement made to the Mumbai Police she had said she reached the flat sometime
after noon) following which Indrani and she discussed company-related matters
before they went to nearby Hilltop Hotel to book a room for Khanna. The
“advance booking in the name of Sanjeev Khanna” was made, according to the
receptionist Miguel Desouza, “at about 1 pm.”
The Bata store manager, Ganesh Yashwant Ghadavale, in his statement to the CBI has said that bill for the three pairs of shoes showed that they were purchased at 12:57 pm on April 24, 2012, but he could not identify Indrani when a test identification parade (TIP) was conducted at Byculla Jail on September 23, 2015.
Witness Nails Driver
Kajal says in her statement that after discussing “business of our company…she (Indrani) told me to accompany her towards Hilltop Hotel, which was very near from her building, for hotel booking…She went to the counter and returned within 10 minutes…she booked one room in the name of Khanna…Then we returned to the home of Indrani, and after sometime she asked me to leave.”
Indrani couldn’t have been at two or more locations at the same time on April 24, 2012. Indrani’s call data records indicate that she was at her Marlow apartment since morning and did not step out before early evening when she left for Bandra to meet Sheena. Rai’s statement in this context is again suspect. If he was at Marlow he should certainly have noticed Kajal enter and leave the residential complex.
Questionable Confession
- Driver Shyamwar Rai’s statement contradicts Indrani Mukerjea’s secretary Kajal Sharma’s.
- Kajal reached Indrani’s Marlow flat at 11:30 am. While Rai says that Indrani left Marlow
residence between 9:00 to 10: am, Kajal says she was with Indrani till about 1 pm on 24 April, 2012.
- Indrani’s call data record indicates that she reached Bandra at 5.40 pm, though Rai claims she reached around 6.30-7.00 pm.
- Shyamwar mentions Indrani stopping at a
parlour while buying sedatives and alcohol, but the owner denies offering her services.
- Rai’s statement doesn’t mention his
conversation with Sheena Bora’s brother, Mikhail.
Other Inconsistencies
Rai claims that after purchasing the “medicines” and the alcohol, Indrani told him, “Dono jagah se samaan lekar mujhe diya aur mujhe boli mein parlour se aati hoon (She handed me the stuff purchased from the two places and told me she would return from the parlour).” In her statement to the CBI, the parlour owner, Angele Chang, who knew Indrani well, denied Indrani availed of her services on 24 April, 2012.
Besides, Rai makes the absurd claim that “Phir madam sham ko char sadhey char baje neeche aayi aur mujhe boli Bandra chalo…Bandra pohunch-kar madam mujhe boli National College ke side gadi rook. Meine aage jaa-ke U-turn liya. Tab sham ke 6.30/7 baje thye. (Then madam came down around 4-4.30 pm and told me to drive to Bandra…After reaching Bandra, madam told me to park the car by the side of National College. I went forward and took a U-turn. It was 6.30-7.00 in the evening at that time.”
When, according to the CBI, Khanna could reach Bandra from Hilltop Hotel in Worli in about 20 minutes (after beginning the process to check-in at 6.05 pm), how does it take Rai two hours to reach the same place from Marlow which is on Pochkhanwala Road in Worli? There is no evidence to suggest that Indrani went anywhere else after leaving Marlow before reaching Amarsons in Bandra. What Rai fails to mention in his confessional statement is his telephonic conversations with Mikhail Bora who reached Mumbai in the afternoon or when Indrani, Khanna and he switched to the new shoes purchased from the Bata store.
Correct Recognition of Indrani?
Another witness, Shambhunath Kori, a guard at Marlow, says in his statement (recorded on October 6, 2015) that “On 24.4.2012, Indrani Mukerjea and her driver SP Rai went outside at around 10 by the said car and came back around 1 pm. Again both went outside in the evening by the said car and came back at around 9.30 pm along with one unknown person.”
Over three years after he saw the “unknown person” (Khanna), Kori recognised him in the test identification parade (TIP) where no other person with similar features were produced before him. More improbably, he recognised the car, a Chevrolet Optra, over three years after he was asked by the police to do so.
Two other witnesses, Ansari Masleuddin Shahabuddin, from whose Gowandi pavement shop Indrani allegedly purchased two rexin bags, and Dharam Punamchand Jain, a cloth merchant who runs a saree shop, from where Indrani supposedly purchased three cheap sarees on April 24, 2012, recorded positive identification of her.
But curiously enough, Mangesh Mohan Surve, assistant manager at Rakhangi Medical Store, failed to recognise Indrani when she was taken to the store by CBI sleuths.
Also read:
Sheena Murder: Driver Rai’s Inconsistent Story Similar to CBI’s
Sheena Bora Case: Bombay HC Hauls CBI, Special Judge Over Coals
Sheena Bora Murder Case: Rai Turns Approver, But Loose Ends Remain
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