Sheena Murder: A Well Managed Investigation, But It’s Not Over Yet

The Sheena Bora murder is already being compared to the Aarushi murder case, and not without reason. There is a young victim, suspected family involvement and details of liaisons that will

put even the most creatively written soap opera to shame.

The big difference in the two cases, though, is how the police seems to have handled the investigation. What followed in the wake of the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case were leaks,

investigative lapses and contaminated crime scenes by the UP police and the CBI.

Despite the shoddy work in 2012 by the police in Raigad, the Mumbai police seems to have done a far better job, at least so far, on the Sheena Bora murder case.

As The Quint exclusively reported, sometime between August 20 and 21, the Mumbai police received an anonymous phone call from Meerut that tipped them off to Sheena Bora’s murder.

Acting on the information provided by this caller, Sheena’s mother Indrani Mukerjea, a high-profile media baron, (who had socially always presented Sheena as her sister) was arrested on

August 25. The police followed leads in three cities in under four days to gather enough evidence to make the high profile arrest.

In that time, they managed to obtain the cell phone records and data from Indrani’s phone to corroborate Indrani’s driver Shyam Rai’s narrative of how the murder took place.

The Mumbai police also sent teams to Kolkata and Guwahati. In Kolkata, the role of Indrani’s ex-husband and alleged accomplice Sanjeev Khanna was explored. The Guwahati team was likely

investigating Indrani’s past and how her complicated family history might have played into the murder.

Unlike in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case, there were no ‘leaks’ to the media before the arrests. Multiple teams appeared to have worked in unison to build the case against Indrani Mukerjea

and Sanjeev Khanna.

The Mumbai police is clearly keen on securing a conviction in this case. Commissioner Rakesh Maria seems to be at the helm, interrogating witnesses and addressing the media himself. However,

according to RK Raghavan, former director of the CBI, he does need to be careful that his involvement doesn’t give the appearance of bias.

Rakesh Maria is a hard-working and dynamic officer, who is both aggressive and unconventional. I am impressed that he has personally involved himself in the early days of investigation. I am

sure he knows when to withdraw and allow his officers to attend to details. Or else motives could be attributed to him.– RK Raghavan, former Director of the CBI

Soon after Indrani’s arrest, Maria addressed the media and made it clear that the police were confident about their narrative of how the murder took place. This was, perhaps, ill-advised

this early in the investigation.

The Mumbai police has done a good job in obtaining Indrani’s cell phone records in such a short time, usually no easy task. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to be done in this

regard as well.

I am currently handling two investigations, one each from the SC and the Madras HC. I should know how difficult it is to cull out facts and connect the facts from a maze. Service providers

are also either reluctant or indolent. We need to drive them hard and put the fear of law into them before they fall in line. I am not all that sure the Mumbai Police have got all that they

need. They will need to plod further before laying the chargesheet in court.– RK Raghavan

The case also needs material and forensic evidence, which may be difficult to obtain given that the body was burnt and buried back in 2012. The huge amount of media attention could back-fire

as well. After Indrani’s arrest there have been numerous leaks with details of Indrani Mukerjea and the victim’s personal lives.

Journalist and author of Aarushi Avirook Sen said that journalists too should focus on the facts and evidence in the case rather than the character of the victim or the accused. Based on his

work on the Aarushi case, Sen feels that the version the police puts out in court can differ dramatically from what is presented during the investigation.

So far, Raghavan feels, “the police haven’t taken a false step”, but that doesn’t mean that over-confidence will not trip them up.

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