‘Indrani’s ex-driver showed site where body was burnt’

MUMBAI: As the

Sheena Bora murder trial

resumed on Tuesday after over four months, the prosecution’s first witness,

police sub-inspector Ganesh Dalvi

, claimed that Indrani Mukerjea’s former

driver Shyamvar Rai

had showed him the spots where Sheena was kidnapped in Bandra and where her body was “burnt with petrol” in Gagode village near Khopoli.

Dalvi said the Pen police informed him that the body and organs were sent to JJ Hospital for analysis and thus, he concluded that it was a case of murder and conspiracy.

On Tuesday, when CBI prosecutor Kavita Patil asked Dalvi about the events that followed Rai’s arrest in an illegal

arms case

in 2015, he said, “We—myself and PI Kadam—proceeded in a Tata Sumo according to the directions given by Rai through National College and Linking Road. Rai pointed to the spot where the victim had been kidnapped.” After driving across Sion, Chembur and Vashi, they reached Khopoli. “After crossing a village, he told us to park... Rai pointed to the spot where Sheena’s body was burnt with petrol.”

Rai, who was originally named an accused along with Indrani and her second husband Sanjeev Khanna when the case was registered in 2015, later turned approver, a state witness. After his arrest in an illegal arms case on August 21, 2015, his statements to Dalvi were turned into an FIR on August 25, 2015, for the murder case against Indrani, Khanna and Rai.

Peter

Mukerjea, Indrani’s husband, was arrested in November 2015.

Last month, the high court, on Mukerjeas’ plea, barred deposition of a detailed account by Dalvi of what Rai had told him. Peter’s counsel Shrikant Shivade objected to Dalvi deposing on Rai’s statements made to him as an accused in another case as Rai was now an approver and yet to be examined as witness. Indrani’s counsel Sudeep Pasbola also objected to the deposition and questioned the legality of the FIR in the murder case. Shivade, Pasbola and Niranjan Mundergi, counsel for Khanna, filed pleas to defer Dalvi’s cross-examination on the grounds that Rai has yet to depose as approver.

Special CBI judge J C Jagdale adjourned the proceedings to July 17 for order on both applications. The judge said objections to parts of Dalvi’s deposition could be dealt with at the time of final arguments.

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