Indian media magnate charged with murder

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court today directed the producer and director of film “Dark Chocolate“, based on Sheena Bora murder case, not to release any material apart from its already released trailer on internet, pending hearing on a plea of arrested accused Peter Mukerjea’s sister.

In its chargesheet, filed on Tuesday, CBI claimed that Peter was actively involved in the murder conspiracy, alongwith other accused Indrani Mukerjea, Sanjeev Khanna and Shyamvar Rai.

The chargesheet was filed before an additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Esplanade Court after investigation unearthed more evidence against Peter Mukerjea. Peter was charged under sections 302 (murder), 120b (conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence).

Sources say this supplementary charge-sheet only explains 59-year-old Mr Mukerjea’s role in the crime and that financial dealings will be elaborated upon in another supplementary charge-sheet. The agency has in its possession call data records which show that Peter spoke to Indrani on April 24 – the day of the murder – at around 12:24 PM for 1329 seconds and again at 1:36 PM for 242 seconds and that they exchanged messages as well.

Aside from this, she spoke with Peter for 924 seconds after Sheena’s body was burnt and disposed of in the forests of Raigad on 25 April 2012. The 500-page charge sheet states that Peter and Indrani were unhappy with Sheena’s relationship with Rahul, Peter’s son, and that Peter had told one of his friends, Prithul Sanghavi, that the relationship was not right.

Indrani is the prime accused in the case.

Both Peter and Indrani disapproved of this relationship, the CBI stated in the chargesheet. Police have also nailed Peter on the basis of mail to his son Rahul in which he tried to cover up Sheena’s death. He was questioned by the CBI for two weeks after which he was remanded in judicial custody and sent to the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai. The chargesheet highlighted a comparison of the money Indrani had allotted to her daughters, Sheena and Vidhie, on different occasions.

The CBI has been investigating various angles in this case, including the financial transactions that took place after the sale of INX Media by the Mukherjeas.