Indrani Mukerjea being taken, with her face covered, for questiniong to the Khar Police Station in Mumbai on Saturday. (Press Trust of India)
Indrani Mukerjea, arrested for the murder of her young daughter Sheena Bora, has been beaten by the police, say sources on her legal team, adding that they are being given grossly inadequate access to the 43-year-old former media executive.
Ms Mukerjea's legal team is headed by noted lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani. Sources working with him say that in a phone call, he told Mumbai police chief Rakesh Maria, that his client is visibly bruised, and that on Saturday night, her meeting with her lawyers was conducted inexplicably in the presence of five policemen. Sources say a formal complaint is unlikely to be filed today in the court where Ms Mukerjea will be brought along with the others arrested in the case - former husband Sanjeev Khanna, and driver Shyam Rai.
Ms Mukerjea was arrested a week ago -the result of an anonymous phone call and three months of surveillance- for allegedly strangling Ms Bora, then setting her body on fire in 2012. Till her arrest, Ms Mukerjea, who is married to TV tycoon Peter Mukerjea, had maintained that Ms Bora was her younger sister who had relocated to the United States to study.
At the time, Ms Bora was engaged to Peter Mukerjea's son from an earlier marriage, Rahul Mukerjea.
Police sources say their investigation has looked at two possible motives for the killing. The young couple's parents had expressed their disapproval of the relationship between step-siblings; the other strand of inquiry is a financial dispute, allegedly ceded during interrogation by Ms Mukerjea, who has reportedly confessed that she "hated" Ms Bora but didn't murder her.
The second of her three husbands- Sanjeev Khanna- has allegedly confessed to his role in the killing, stating that Ms Mukerjea led him to believe that the daughter they share, 17-year-old Vidhie, was likely to be killed by Ms Bora and her brother, Mekhail.
Ms Mukerjea, according to her son, tried to have him killed on different occasions, including on the day that Ms Bora was killed.