Police said Indrani Mukerjea was implicated by her driver
If it weren't a real-life tragedy involving the murder of a young woman, the story of Indrani Mukerjea would be dismissed as a collective of the coarsest soap opera tropes: a dead body discovered years after the crime, a driver who claims his employer ordered him to kill, step-siblings who began dating, a daughter presented to the world as a sister, an ex-husband who doubles up as an alleged partner in crime, a current husband who says he is realising that he "
spent years in the dark".
And yet, all those are plot points that have shot out of the dark at breakneck speed since last night, when Ms Mukerjea, 43, was arrested in Mumbai from the home she shares with her third husband, Peter Mukerjea, once the CEO of Star TV. Ms Mukerjea has served years ago as the CEO of INX Media, founded in 2007 with her husband, and owner of 9X and two other TV channels.
The police said
Ms Mukerjea was implicated by her driver, who was arrested in another case last week, and said that a dead body found in Raigad on the outskirts of Mumbai, was that of Sheena Bora. He had killed Ms Bora, the driver alleged, on Ms Mukerjea's orders. After Ms Mukerjea was arrested, and, unusually, interrogated by Mumbai Police Chief Rakesh Maria, she reportedly confessed that Ms Bora was, in fact, her daughter from an earlier relationship. (
5 Pics: The Family Tree of Indrani Mukerjea Case)
Ms Bora was last seen alive in 2012. There are conflicting reports of why, for years, her absence seemed to provoke such little interest. Speaking to NDTV, Mr Mukerjea said that though he had heard reports that Ms Bora was his wife's daughter, he had dismissed these as rumours. Since last night, he said, "reliable sources" led him to believe he had "spent years in the dark".
He had, in any case, his own squaring off to do. Ms Bora, who moved from Guwahati to live in Mumbai with the Mukerjeas
was dating his son, Rahul, a child from his first marriage. Neither his wife nor he approved of the relationship, Mr Mukerjea said, "but they were grown-ups and they were adults." When his wife said Ms Bora was heading to Los Angeles for higher education, he said, his son was told that it was time for both of them to move on.
Mr Mukerjea was questioned by the Mumbai Police on Wednesday. In Kolkata, Ms Mukerjea's second husband, Sanjeev Khanna, was arrested for the murder (his friends say Ms Bora is not his daughter). In Guwahati, Mikhail Bora, who is Ms Mukerjea's son, told NDTV that his maternal grandparents had brought up Ms Bora and him; Ms Mukerjea, he said, never asked to be called their mother.
He said he knew that his sister had begun dating Rahul Mukerjea in Mumbai, and that the relationship was causing some prickliness. "Peter Mukerjea once spoke to me about it, I told them it's a family issue," Mr Bora said to NDTV. "She's a girl, she can have an affair, I am no one to stop her." He went on to say that he knows his mother is guilty, but
will wait till August 31 for her to reveal the motive. He did not disclose the rationale for his deadline.
Police sources say that Ms Bora was last seen alive in a car with Ms Mukerjea, her second husband, and her driver and that the investigation so far suggests that the young woman was first strangled and then her body, smothered in petrol, was set on fire. The police claims that the body was recovered a month later and disposed of, but is unable to explain why it believes that corpse was of Ms Bora. The police also say that
the first leads on Ms Mukerjea's alleged role came in four months ago, and were quietly followed till there was enough to act on.
That is likely to be the last lever of discretion applied to a narrative that is barreling forward with lurid steam. If Ms Mukerjea spent years lugging family and other secrets, they are being pried open now on live television. There is already criticism - and more will follow - of the media cheerfully hiking up a dirt trail to focus on a family tree somewhat more gnarled than others, of a made-for-tabloid crime being passed off as a national headline. That debate too will prove to be a prime time squatter. And India is unlikely to look away.