The Quint Got It Right on Peter Mukerjea’s Culpability Weeks Ago

The CBI has taken Peter Mukerjea in to custody now but The Quint pointed out his role in the Sheena Murder months ago

Long before the rest of the media pack – newspapers, TV channels – could get even close to suggesting some form of culpability on the part of Peter Mukerjea, in the larger story surrounding Sheena Bora’s murder, The Quint was bang on target.

The Quint was vilified on social media, with sundry journalists, including editors, questioning the authenticity of the series of stories we published.

Pointing to Peter First

As early as August 29, The Quint published this story on why Peter Mukerjea’s custodial interrogation was vital for the Mumbai Police’s investigation:

“Four days after Indrani Mukerjea and her driver Shyam Rai were arrested for their alleged involvement in the murder of the former’s daughter Sheena Bora, and after hours and hours of interrogation of five persons, the most eye-catching part of the probe so far is the Mumbai Police’s hesitation in thoroughly questioning Peter Mukerjea.”

“…Police sources have indicated that Peter “knows everything” regardless of his statements to the contrary.”

On September 3, The Quint ran this story, yet again pointing to the urgency in taking him into custody and then subjecting him to the same intensity of grilling that his wife Indrani, the prime accused in the murder of her daughter Sheena, underwent.

“Even as the former Star India CEO is being put through gruelling questioning sessions at Mumbai’s Khar police station since September 2… a chorus of voices has emerged, saying that his custodial interrogation will likely unravel the motive(s) of the alleged perpetrators.”

When Peter Called Mikhail

There were details The Quint took a conservative stand on and, lacking confirmation from a second source other than the primary informant, chose not to put out as stories. For instance, Peter called up Mikhail Bora, Indrani’s Guwahati-based son, using a friend’s phone around 8:30 pm on September 12.

While the details of the seven-minute conversation, which Peter’s friend started before handing over the phone to him, are not known, there was strong suspicion that Peter sought to “soften up” Mikhail who, by that time, had been examined by investigators in Mumbai.

The ‘Personal’ Angle

It has come to light in the course of the CBI’s investigation that Peter Mukerjea bore all of Sheena’s expenses in a European country. But did he also pay for her visit to a Thai sea resort town as The Quint had reported after Indrani’s arrest? The Quint was also first to report on the probable motive for the murder in this story:

“These friends reveal that sometime before the Mukerjeas’ electronic media business ended, the family member close to Indrani told her that he would be visiting Thailand on a weekend to meet some prospective business partners. In reality, however, this man spent some intimate time with Sheena in a Thai town.”

And then this on September 14, just three days before the Sheena Bora murder case was handed over to the CBI:

“Investigators under the leadership of former Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria have reasons to believe that it was Sheena’s intimacy with a person very close to Indrani, that led to her murder. It was a relationship that Indrani got wind of towards the end of 2011, allegedly leading her to murder her own daughter who had been born out-of-wedlock in 1987.”

A Complex Motive

In yet another exclusive story, The Quint reported that: “A day after the Maharashtra government handed over the Sheena Bora murder case for investigation by the CBI, a top state administration official confirmed to The Quint that an affair between a person very close to Indrani Mukerjea and her daughter is the real motive behind killing the girl in April 2012.”

The Quint’s coup de grace was published on October 5 in this story:

“Indrani’s murder motive, which the Mumbai Police was loath to reveal when the sensational case was being investigated by a select band of officers centred at Khar police station, was a complex combination of reasons that stemmed on the one hand from extreme hatred for Sheena for having an affair with a person close to her and her insecurities that arose from a very likely loss of the immense wealth that she sat on once INX Group was sold in February 2009.”

What the CBI is now interested in finding out is whether Peter thought up an alibi by being in Rome the day – April 24, 2012 – Sheena was murdered. More importantly, Indrani’s driver Shyamwar Rai’s entire “story” of how Sheena was murdered followed by how her body was disposed of is being re-examined in the light of his confessional statement before a Mumbai court a few days ago.