Sheena Bora murder case: Rahul Mukerjea refused help for lodging missing report; witness tells court

MUMBAI: Rahul Mukerjea was offered advice and assistance to lodge a missing person's report when he said his girlfriend, Sheena Bora, disappeared in 2012, but "he never took" the help offered by a lawyer.Bora's childhood friend, a 38-year-old homemaker from Guwahati, said this during a cross-examination in the Sheena Bora murder case, while deposing as a prosecution witness before a trial court on Friday. The witness also admitted that although the lawyer, her cousin practising at the Supreme Court, offered Rahul help to file a Habeas Corpus petition before the HC, he never filed it. The cross-examination was conducted by defence counsel Ranjeet Sangle, representing the prime accused, Indrani Mukerjea, who the prosecuting agency said is Sheena's biological mother.

"It is correct to say that my cousin offered help to Rahul, but he never took it," the witness said in response to a question from Sangle.

Indrani and her two former husbands, Sanjeev Khanna and Peter Mukerjea-all three present in court and on bail-are facing the murder trial. The prosecuting agency, CBI, claims that on April 24, 2012, Sheena's biological mother, Indrani, and Khanna strangled Sheena in a car driven by Indrani's driver, Shyamwar Rai, the original accused-turned-approver.

The car allegedly picked Sheena up from a shopping mall in Bandra. Indrani's counsel, Sangle, in his cross-examination of the witness, posed questions to poke holes in her testimony as a prosecution witness and to establish Indrani's denial of any role in the alleged murder. To a question from Sangle, the witness, dressed in a pink salwar kameez and answering all questions quietly after contemplation, also said Rahul-son of Peter from his previous marriage-never told her that when he dropped Sheena in Bandra to go shopping with Indrani, he saw anyone outside the store. She said that, until Oct 2009, Sheena informed her that she merely shared a flat with Rahul but did not disclose that she had been in a romantic relationship with him since 2008. The prosecution witness had earlier deposed that Indrani was against the Sheena-Rahul relationship, and the prosecution's case also hinged on the alleged objection as one of the motives for the crime. To another question, the witness admitted that she had, in an email, asked Sheena if Rahul "was clean." Sangle asked what she meant by 'clean.' To further prodding by the lawyer, her testimony said, "By this email, I mean whether Rahul was a genuine person, taking care of her, whether he was addicted to any vices ..."