Driver Shyamvar Rai says Indrani Mukerjea murdered Sheena

Mumbai:  Shyamvar Rai, a prime accused-turned-approver in the Sheena Bora murder case, on Friday revealed that it was Sheena's mother Indrani Mukerjea who had pinned her down and strangulated her to death. In his confessional recorded before a magistrate, Rai added that at the time, he had gagged Sheena, while Indrani's former husband Sanjeev Khanna had held the victim's hands and hair. The statement recorded last year before a magistrate under Criminal Procedure Code Section's 164 was handed over to all the other co-accused in the case and the sealed envelope was opened by the Special CBI Court following the Bombay High Court directives on Thursday. Rai further claimed that Indrani implicated him in the arms case by planting a gun on him shortly after Sheena's murder. He said that after the murder in April 2012, Indrani handed over a packet and three months' salary and asked him to go, and when he opened the packet he found a crude gun in it. He added that twice he attempted to dispose it off and was nabbed when he tried to do so the third time after he was spotted by some policemen. Police found the gun on him during a search and he was arrested in August 2015, and during interrogation, he blew the lid off the three-year old Sheena Bora murder case. Indrani's daughter by a previous relationship, Sheena was lured by her, Khanna and Rai, taken to a desolate location in the Raigad forests and murdered before her body was put in a suitcase and disposed in the jungles. Soon after Rai's arrest, Indrani was arrested, followed by her former husband Khann from Kolkata and after three months, former media baron and Indrani's husband, Peter Mukerjea was also arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The trio of Peter, Indrani and Khanna are in custody in various Mumbai jails while last month, Rai offered to become an approver and a prosecution witness in return for a pardon which was granted by the Special Court. On Thursday, Justice Sadhana Jadhav of Bombay High Court directed that Rai's confessional, recorded on November 16, 2015, be opened and handed over to all the other accused in the case.