Sheena Bora murder case: Peter recalls phone call ‘Indrani made him take a day after murder’

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“A few hours later, Rahul called me and asked me about Sheena’s whereabouts, I told him that she had settled with a boy from USA and has moved on,” the source confirmed.

Officials are now looking to cross-question Indrani on this development. With CDR available for only a past year, officials are trying to track down the woman who was made to speak to Peter, once the incident is proved.

In another line of investigation, with capital assets and money allegedly between the husband and wife as the motive behind the murder conspiracy, the CBI are probing three financial transactions connected to the case. According to details available with The Indian Express, the transactions under scrutiny are, three HDFC accounts, two accounts with Barclays Bank and one account with Kotak Mahindra bank which in under our scrutiny.

All the accounts are held in joint name by Peter and Indrani.

While the HDFC accounts have been opened between 2003 and August 2008, Barclays Bank accounts have been opened in 2008 and closed in 2011. While one of the Barclays Bank accounts was opened in October 2008, it was closed in May 2011 and interestingly, the other account was opened in November 2008 and closed in June 2011. The time period between opening and the closing of the two accounts differ by a month. The third account in Kotak Mahindra was opened in January 2012 and closed in December 2012. In the same account, Indrani deposited 13 Fixed Deposits aggregating Rs 1.62 crore maturing in July/November 2016.

Sources claim Peter has not been able to give details on the sources of funds deposited in these three banks. “One of the Fixed Deposits (FD) is of Rs 80 lakhs that Indrani had deposited in 2012. We suspect the money has come from proceeds of the sale of the Delhi property which Indrani had gifted Sheena but after she learnt that she was having an affair with Rahul, sold it off. When Sheena learnt about it, she started blackmailing Indrani and threatened to expose her real relationship with Indrani in the high flying social circuit of which Indrani was a part of,” another official added.

The financial angle has become focus of the probe. Even the Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, who represented CBI on Monday, told the court that finance is one of the motives behind Sheena’s murder.

On Monday night, Peter was moved out of the Nariman Point office and taken to Delhi, to the agency’s headquarters. Sources indicated that Peter, who was not co-operating with the investigation, would be grilled by senior officers. “It is very rare in a case that an ASG argues while seeking remand of the accused. In this case, owing to high profile nature of the case, the ASG was roped in. Also to grill Peter, the DIG, Crime Lata Manoj Kumar was flown from Delhi. This only goes on to show that even CBI is treading with caution and only senior officials are involved in the case,” a senior officer observed. Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria was criticised for taking keen interest in the case.

The murder case was ‘chanced upon’ by Mumbai Police when they arrested the former driver of the Mukerjeas, Shyam Rai in August this year. During interrogation, Rai revealed that he had killed Sheena along with Indrani and her second husband Sanjeev Khanna in April 2012. In September, the state government transferred the case to the CBI citing complex financial dealings that need to be probed by a “competent” agency.

rashmi.rajput@expressindia.com