‘Didn’t incite Byculla jail riots’: Mukerjea’s petition at HC goes unheard

Indrani Mukerjea withdrew her petition to cancel an FIR accusing her of inciting 2017 Byculla jail riots after inmate Shetye's murder, citing delays in court.

MUMBAI: Former media executive Indrani Mukerjea, embroiled in controversy due to her alleged role in the Sheena Bora murder, withdrew her petition seeking to cancel an FIR which accused her of inciting the 2017 riots at the Byculla jail after the brutal murder of inmate Manjula Shetye.

‘Didn’t incite Byculla jail riots’: Mukerjea’s petition at HC goes unheard

Mukerjea had filed the petition in 2022, but nearly three years later, the court had yet not circulated it for hearing. Instead, a division bench of justices AS Gadkari and RR Bhonsale said that Mukerjea could drop her petition and appeal at the magistrate for not having taken notice of it.

Mukerjea, in and out of the media spotlight, was imprisoned at the Byculla jail, after she allegedly strangled her daughter, Shina Bora in April 2012 with the help of her former husband Sanjeev Khanna, and driver. When the case came to light in 2015, Khanna and Mukerjea were taken into custody, and later released on bail in 2022.

During Mukerjea’s stint at the prison, a savage assault on a fellow inmate, Shetye, highlighted the hellish nature of Indian prisons. Shetye was severely abused and left to die in the absence of timely medical attention. The incident sparked riots at Byculla jail and over 200 inmates were booked for allegedly assaulting jail officers and damaging government property. Mukerjea was accused of having incited the violence, although she claimed that she was falsely implicated and called the allegations her “bogus and vague”.

In her petition Mukerjea had said that though the charge-sheet against her was filed in 2021, she had not been given a copy of the FIR. After the petition was withdrawn, Mukerjea’s advocate, Sana Raees Khan, said, “Since the trial court has taken cognisance of the case, we will file a fresh petition.”