Peter, Indrani made regular calls: Peter’s lawyer

The defence said the former media baron and his wife made ‘good morning and good night calls’

Mumbai: The defence on Friday claimed that the calls exchanged between former media baron Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani were ‘regular good morning and good night calls’ and that the prosecution was giving them a different colour by claiming they were made to hatch the conspiracy to kill the latter’s daughter, Sheena Bora.

Advocates Abad Ponda and Mihir Gheewala were arguing during the hearing on the bail application of Peter. They said there was a pattern to the calls exchanged between Peter and Indrani and most of them were on the landline for Indrani’s daughter, Vidhie.

Ponda argued that for Peter and his family, Indrani had come to India in the first week of April to finalise a property deal in Goa and not for any murder conspiracy as alleged by them. “They were calls between family members and if the timings are checked, they were regular good morning and good night calls,” he said.

Ponda added that Indrani had exchanged more calls with her secretary Kajal who had created a fake email ID of Sheena and also spoke to Peter as Sheena on Indrani’s instructions. “Why is she not being made an accused as there are more calls between them even during the time of murder,” he said.

When Indrani, who was abroad, visited India on April 6, she made eight calls to joint commissioner of police (law and order) Deven Bharti, who was posted as additional commissioner of police (crime), and exchanged some the messages, contents of which are not known, he said.

Ponda also questioned about the call Indrani made to Dr Yusuf Matchiswala on Friday and said if calls between them are not suspicious, why should calls between husband, wife and daughter be incriminating. He added that most of the calls were made to Vidhie as Indrani was her biological mother and wanted to keep tab of her routine.

When Ponda began his argument on Thursday, he contended that there is no prima facie evidence to prove that Peter had a hand in the murder. He said Peter was not against the Rahul’s and Sheena’s relationship but was sandwiched between his wife and son.

The arguments will be continued on Monday.