That's Sheena's voice: Key witness contradicts CBI timeline in murder case

Vidhie Mukerjea, a key witness in the Sheena Bora murder case, on Wednesday identified a voice in an audio recording as Sheena’s, allegedly captured two days after the CBI claims Sheena was killed.

“That’s Sheena, I heard her voice. I’m shaking inside. I know this. Her accent is Assamese it’s her,” Vidhie told the court.

The recording was of a conversation between Rahul Mukerjea and Kishor Barman, who lived at the Guwahati home of Indrani Mukerjea’s parents as caretaker.

In the clip, Barman asked Rahul about dropping Sheena at Bandra, where Indrani and Sanjeev Khanna allegedly picked her up on April 24, 2012. Rahul then asked for Sheena’s father’s contact, and a female voice interjected, “Nana Nani will file report.”

“I have heard this recording more than 100 times to be sure. It’s Sheena’s voice. This is how she says ‘report.’ It’s her Assamese accent. She called them Nana Nani. I swear I identify this voice as Sheena’s,” Vidhie said, appearing shaken and asking for water while testifying.

On Wednesday, Indrani’s lawyer, Ranjit Sangle, played multiple such recordings in court.

The CBI claims that Indrani, her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna, and driver Shyamvar Rai strangled Sheena in a car on April 24, 2012, before dumping her body in a bag, taking it to Pen village in Raigad, and setting it on fire the next day. The case came to light in 2015 when Rai was arrested in an unrelated arms case in Mumbai. Investigators allege Indrani opposed Sheena’s relationship with Peter Mukerjea’s son Rahul.

In another clip, Vidhie again insisted it was Sheena’s voice: “It’s Sheena’s voice. I have her voice in my head. I never forgot it. I knew it the first time I heard it.”

She further testified that Rahul told her he dropped Sheena to meet Indrani on the night of April 24, 2012, and later picked her up. “He said brazenly that no one would ever know what happened to Sheena or where she went,” she recalled.

According to Vidhie, Rahul also claimed he was with Sheena on April 26, 2012—two days after the CBI timeline places her death. “It is correct to say Rahul confessed before me that he picked up Sheena on April 24, therefore he was the last person seen with her,” she told the court.

Describing Rahul’s behaviour, Vidhie said: “He was smoking a lot of marijuana in the house. He had hard drugs. I ignored it as I felt he was going through something. I had just turned 18 and was dealing with my own trauma, but I supported him as much as I could, like a younger sister.”

Part of her testimony was recorded in camera, as she expressed discomfort about speaking on certain details in open court.

Vidhie denied sending a message to Sheena that read, “Mom is very angry and wants to get rid of somebody,” which the CBI treats as crucial evidence.

She alleged that Sheena confided in her about being pressured into an engagement with Rahul. “She told me she was being forced to marry Rahul, and that it was Rahul’s mother, Shabnam Anand Singh, who pressured her,” said Vidhie. She described Rahul as “aggressive and violent,” recalling how she overheard their fights and once learnt Sheena had been hospitalised in Bengaluru.

She admitted that family members once “fed” her information which influenced interviews she gave to the media while promoting her book Devil’s Daughter. She also told the court she filed a 2022 affidavit and claimed that a laptop belonging to Indrani, which could have proven her innocence, was destroyed. She refused to disclose who destroyed it.

Vidhie said her father, Sanjeev Khanna, travelled from Kolkata to Mumbai in 2012 because Peter and Indrani were considering sending her to Kolkata International School to strengthen ties with her paternal family. “Since 2011, because of my naughtiness and the need to strengthen cultural bonds with my father’s family, there were discussions about moving me to Kolkata International School,” she said.

She added that Rahul and the other children knew Sanjeev Khanna was her biological father, as his photograph was displayed in her room. “Rahul knew who Sanjeev was and how he looked. But Sanjeev never had anything to do with us. He never met any of us,” she testified.

Vidhie described Sheena as deeply protective of her: “She loved me very, very much. We were like sisters.”

She said Sheena confided in her in 2011 that Rahul was sending “nasty messages” from her phone and email accounts. “Sheena clarified that those messages were not from her and that she loved me,” Vidhie said.

She insisted Sheena was alive at least until April 26, 2012, and argued that Indrani’s objection was not to Sheena and Rahul’s relationship itself, but to their drug use.

She also recalled that Peter and Indrani discussed her schooling with Sanjeev Khanna over Skype in late 2011 and early 2012. Indrani’s flights were altered so she could meet Sanjeev in Mumbai, and eventually, Vidhie was placed in a UK boarding school in April 2012, while Peter travelled to Mumbai alone.

Vidhie told the court she is no longer part of the Mukerjea family’s WhatsApp groups, though she was in 2015, when Rahul shared recordings of his conversations with Peter and Indrani from April 2012, when Sheena disappeared.

After Sangle’s cross-examination, Peter Mukerjea’s lawyer, Manjula Rao, began questioning her.

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