Finally, Peter Mukerjea questioned

TV tycoon and former Star India CEO and co-founder of INX Media Pvt Ltd Peter Mukerjea was questioned on Wednesday by the Mumbai Police about the possible circumstances that may have led to the murder of Sheena Bora by Indrani Mukerjea née Bora and her first husband Sanjeev Khanna.

Sheena, 24, who was killed on April 24, 2012, was the daughter of Indrani and Siddhartha Das. Her son Mikhail Bora, a Guwahati resident, has also accused her of plotting to kill him. The 43-year-old Indrani had separated from Khanna, a Kolkata-based businessman, and married Peter in 2002.

Peter, 59, entered the Khar police station at about 10:15 am and was still inside. His brother, Gautam Mukerjea, was also seen entering the police station with him. In a surprising development, while the Mukerjea brothers entered the police station, around the same time, a team of officers and men from Khar police station visited his bungalow at Marlow Cooperative Housing Society at Worli, only to leave around 12 noon.

At that time, Gautam Mukerjea’s wife Aarti Mukerjea, Peter’s older son Robin and Vidhie, Indrani’s daughter with Sanjeev, who has now been adopted by the media tycoon, were present at the home. Peter’s son Rahul, who had a live-in relationship with Sheena, his step sister, is currently in Dehradun and he has been grilled earlier.

Nearly 15 minutes after Peter entered the police station, Indrani, Sanjeev and driver Shyam Rai, too, were brought there. Separate teams of officers – under the direct supervision of Mumbai Police commissioner Rakesh Maria were grilling them. However, it is officially not yet confirmed whether they have been confronted with each other.

At the time of going to Press, he was still inside the police station and police had not made any comment officially on the stage of investigation.

Peter was questioned on various aspects like his exit from Star India in 2007 and then founding of INX Media Pvt Ltd where he was the Chairman and Indrani was the CEO. Besides, he was also asked about their exit in 2009 from the new venture, which ran channels like general entertainment channel, 9XM, and news channel NewsX. Police are investigating the money trail to know whether some money has been parked in the name of Sheena and they could have risen the dispute between her and her mother.

After Indrani’s arrest, Peter has claimed that he was unaware that Sheena Bora was his wife’s daughter and that Indrani had introduced her as her sister. Mikhail too was passed off as a sibling.

He claimed that the same thing was communicated to him by his son Rahul Mukerjea but he had not believed him as well. Sheena, too, had said she was Indrani’s daughter but he had dismissed it. That was around 2011. When Sheena was murdered, Peter was not in India but in the UK with daughter, Vidhie.