Childhood friend recounts Sheena Bora’s troubled ties with Indrani in CBI court

One email dated August 26, 2009, read, “I want to take sanyas, only then I won’t have to worry about work, renting home, or any other thing.” In another, Sheena spoke of being hospitalised after being given “wrong medication” and wrote, “When I received your message, I was at the hospital and had no energy to reply back

MUMBAI: A childhood friend of murder victim Sheena Bora on Thursday told a special CBI court that Sheena had once expressed a desire to “take sanyas” (abandoning worldly pursuits) to escape the constant turmoil in her life and described her strained relationship with her mother and prime accused Indrani Mukerjea.

Childhood friend recounts Sheena Bora’s troubled ties with Indrani in CBI court

Deposing as a prosecution witness, Sanjana Phukan Raktim — who studied with Sheena from nursery till Class X in Guwahati — produced email exchanges that, she said, revealed Sheena’s family troubles, health issues, and alleged harassment by Indrani. Raktim is among 69 fresh witnesses added by the CBI this year and has been described by the agency as “important” because her correspondence with Sheena details the difficulties the latter allegedly faced at home and at work.

One email dated August 26, 2009, read, “I want to take sanyas, only then I won’t have to worry about work, renting home, or any other thing.” In another, Sheena spoke of being hospitalised after being given “wrong medication” and wrote, “When I received your message, I was at the hospital and had no energy to reply back.”

According to Raktim, Sheena confided that she had stopped speaking to Indrani, saying her mother “cannot change” and she did not want to make her life difficult again. She also told her friend she was living with Rahul Mukerjea, son of media executive Peter Mukerjea from an earlier marriage, as her relations with Indrani had soured further.

“She told me Indrani tried to get her out of her job through contacts and even stopped her salary. She (Sheena) tried hard and somehow managed to save her job,” Raktim told the court.

Raktim said she last met Sheena in 2011 in Guwahati during her own wedding, where Sheena had spoken happily about her relationship with Rahul and said she might marry him within a year. The witness added that she later received text messages in April 2012 suggesting Sheena was breaking up with Rahul and changing her number, but when she called back, the phone was switched off.

Raktim also said she informed the Mumbai Police in 2015 that Sheena was Indrani’s daughter, not her sister as Indrani had claimed after her arrest.

During cross-examination, she admitted that the emails were printed by CBI officers and she signed a certificate they had prepared, though the devices used were not in her custody. The cross-examination will continue on Friday.

The testimony came in the ongoing trial of Sheena’s 2012 murder. The prosecution alleges that on April 24 that year, Sheena, then 24, was strangled inside a car by Indrani, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna, and driver Shyamvar Rai, who later turned approver. Her body was allegedly burnt and dumped in a forest in Raigad.

The case came to light in 2015 after Rai’s arrest in another case, when he confessed to his role and led investigators to Sheena’s remains. The CBI has alleged Indrani opposed Sheena’s relationship with Rahul over fears of property disputes, while a supplementary chargesheet said she had kept Peter informed by phone about the disposal of the body.