My husband was at home, says Indrani driver's wife

Even as Indrani Mukerjea’s former driver Shyam Rai continues to sing at the Khar police station giving details of the brutal murder of Sheena Bora, his wife Sharda on Thursday night claimed that he was innocent and that he was at home on April 24, 2012.

Sheena was strangulated to death on April 24, 2012 inside a car driven by Rai, 43,  in which Indrani and her second husband Sanjeev Khanna were present. The body was disposed of in Raigad district. A day before the incident, April 23, Indrani and Rai had conducted a reconnaissance to dump the body. “My husband is innocent, he even fears darkness…he cannot do this,” Sharda said.

Asked what was he doing on April 24, she said: “He was at home”. The 36-year-old Sharda also alleged that,  “Some big people are trying to frame my husband. Around 10 days ago, he told me that he is going out for some work and had not returned home.”

Shyam and Sharda have an eight-year-old daughter and a three-month-old boy. They stay in a rented ‘chawl’ at the Vakola-Santacruz area of the western suburbs of Mumbai. He used to work as a driver for Indrani  for close to three years – but later drove autorickshaw – when Indrani went abroad for a few months.

When she was told that her husband was involved in a murder, she said: “We are staying in a rented place in a chawl…had it been so, we would have purchased a flat by now.”