Indrani Mukerjea gets bail: A timeline of Sheena Bora murder case

After being rejected bail multiple times, former media executive Indrani Mukerjea, who is the prime accused in the 2012 high-profile murder case of Sheena Bora, has been granted bail on Wednesday (May 18) by the Supreme Court. Indrani was arrested in August 2015, after her former driver Shyamvar Rai, who was apprehended in an illegal weapon case, confessed to a murder he had committed along with his employer.

Her former husband Sanjeev Khanna was also arrested for the murder of her biological daughter, the 22-year-old Sheena Bora from her first husband, Siddarth Das.

On Wednesday, taking note that Indrani had been in jail for six and a half years, ‘too long a time’, a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, B R Gavai and A S Bopanna granted her bail. The trial of the Sheena Bora case, which started on February 2017, is still on. It was stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic but is expected to resume shortly. Nearly 67 witnesses have deposed, including Rai, forensic experts and others so far.

Indrani Mukerjea’s story, which has more twists and turns than you will find in an Agatha Christie novel, kicked off when Indrani met and started a live-in relationship with her fellow student, Siddarth Das. She had two children with him, Sheena Bora was born in 1987 and Mekhail, who was born on September 9, 1988.

According to Das, who had deposed in court, one day in 1989, Indrani suddenly left leaving her two children in her parent’s home. Das searched for her a week and then left too for his hometown Tripura since he was angry with her for leaving without a word.

Das however claimed he remained in touch with his children who were living with their grandparents in Guwahati.

After a marriage to Kolkata-based Sanjeev Khanna in 1993, Indrani, had started a recruitment company, INX Services Pvt Ltd with clients like Reliance Industries and Star India. She also reportedly gave birth to a daughter, Vidhie Khanna, in 1997.

After hooking up with Peter Mukherjea, a retired Indian television executive in 2007, she co-founded INX Media, where she took on the role of CEO.

Meanwhile, her daughter Sheena Bora, who she reportedly passed off as her step-sister, entered into a live-in relationship with her step-brother Rahul, the younger son of Peter Mukerjea with his first wife Shabnam Singh. Peter and Indrani were against the relationship, and according to the CBI, Peter, Indrani and Sanjeev allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy to kill Sheena.

Indrani, Sanjeev and her driver allegedly strangled Sheena in a moving car and her body was reportedly set ablaze and her body parts were buried in Pen and Raigad.

Here’s a timeline on the Sheena Bora murder case:

April 24, 2012: Sheena Bora, an executive working for Mumbai Metro One based in Mumbai, goes missing. Her employers get her resignation letter ostensibly written by her brother Mikhail

Rahul Mukherjea, the son of media baron Peter Mukherjea, the step-brother and boyfriend of Sheena Bora, receives a text from Sheena’s phone breaking up with him

When he questions Indrani about Sheena’s disappearance, she asks him to “stop chasing Sheena” and that she has gone off to the US to escape him

May 23, 2012 – Local police find a decomposed body in Maharashtra’s Raigad district. The CBI later claimed it was Sheena’s body.

August 21, 2015– Shyamvar Rai, Indrani Mukerjea’s former driver, arrested by police for possession of illegal weapons. He tells the police the pistol has been given to him by Indrani and confesses to the police about Sheena’s killing three years earlier

August 25, 2015 – Indrani Mukerjea arrested

August 26, 2015: Indrani’s ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna arrested in Kolkata

August 30, 2015: Indrani, Sanjeev and Shyam taken to Raigad to recreate crime scene

September 1, 2015: Siddhartha Das confesses that he is Sheena’s biological father

September 18, 2015 – Case transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) foom the Mumbai police by Maharashtra government

September 30, 2015: CBI lodges FIR against Indrani, Sanjeev and Shyam

December 2015: The CBI made its first and only arrest in the case by booking Peter Mukerjea, the then-husband of Indrani Mukerjea, for allegedly being part of the conspiracy of the murder. Among the reasons for the murder as claimed by the CBI was that the couple was unhappy with Sheena Bora’s relationship with Rahul

2016: Rai sought to become a prosecution witness claiming that he had remorse for what he had done and wanted to make full disclosure about the alleged murder of Sheena Bora. His plea was accepted.

April 2016: Indrani’s bail plea rejected

October 21, 2016: CBI files second supplementary chargesheet in a special CBI court in Mumbai

February 17, 2017: Peter Mukerjea and Indrani Mukerjea charged with Sheena Bora’s murder and conspiracy. Trial begins.

September -November 2018: Indrani’s second and third bail plea rejected

December 8, 2018: CBI told the court that Peter Mukerjea was one of the conspirators in the murder case.

April 2019: Indrani files fourth bail plea.

October 3, 2019: Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea get divorced. Peter Mukherjea reportedly parts with a lot of his assets to get her off his back

December 2019: Special CBI judge rejects bail plea

January 1, 2020: Indrani moves bail for the fifth time. This time, she alleges evidence was planted against her by the prosecution

March 20, 2020: Peter Mukerjea walked out of the Arthur Street jail on bail after spending over four years behind bars.

August 17, 2021: The CBI closed further investigation into the murder case. Shaymvar Rai turned approver in the case.

November 16, 2021: Bombay high court rejects Indrani’s bail plea

December 16, 2021: Indrani Mukerjea claimed that her daughter Sheena Bora is alive and living in Jammu and Kashmir.

May 18, 2022: Indrani Mukherjee finally gets bail