Sheena Bora murder: witness cheated Indrani, claims defence

Kajal Sharma, a witness in the Sheena Bora murder case, cheated prime accused Indrani Mukerjea by forging her signature and withdrawing money from her account, defence lawyers claimed in court on Tuesday. Ms. Sharma, a former personal secretary of Ms. Mukerjea, was being cross-examined by defence lawyers before Special Judge J.C. Jagdale.

Earlier, she had told the CBI that Ms. Mukerjea had forced her to forge Sheena Bora’s signature on a resignation letter, and on a letter seeking cancellation of Sheena’s leave and licence agreement with her employer. This purportedly happened after Sheena’s death. However, on Tuesday, the defence claimed Ms. Sharma didn’t forge Sheena’s signature. Instead, she had cheated Ms. Mukerjea by forging the latter’s signature on cheques and withdrawing money from her bank account.

Denying these allegations, Ms. Sharma said she had only copied Sheena’s signature on Ms. Mukerjea’s instructions. She also said she had deleted a few e-mails from Ms. Mukerjea’s email account, in which she had asked Ms. Sharma to practice Sheena’s signature and send a scanned copy for her approval. “I deleted a few e-mails on Indrani’s instruction. I haven’t done anything wrong. I didn’t know that Sheena was not alive. I blindly followed my boss’s instruction. It’s not correct that I tried to destroy evidence,” she said.

She also claimed she didn’t know that copying someone’s signature was wrong, except with respect to property papers. “I had initially refused to copy (the signature) because I didn’t know where Sheena was and why I should copy her signature. I signed it later as I was told (by Indrani) that Sheena was in the US and didn’t have access to the internet.” Ms. Sharma said the second document was a leave and licence agreement, and not an official property document as it was not on stamp paper.

Sheena (24), Ms. Mukerjea’s daughter from an earlier relationship, was killed in April 2012, but the murder came to light in August 2015 after Ms. Mukerjea’s driver, Shyamvar Rai, revealed it while under arrest in another case. The Mumbai Police arrested Ms. Mukerjea, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and Mr. Rai for allegedly killing Sheena. Later, her husband and media baron Peter Mukerjea was also arrested for allegedly being part of the conspiracy.

The CBI, which took over the case, claimed a financial dispute led to the murder.