Police custody of the prime accused in the Sheena Bora murder case - Indrani Mukerjea, Sanjeev Khanna and Shyamvar Rai - was today extended till September 7 by a local court.
The three were produced in the court this afternoon.
Police sought extension of their custody on the ground that the ongoing probe had yet to cover “a large area“.
Twelve days after his arrest, Indrani’s former driver Shyamvar Rai finally engaged a lawyer today. No one had represented him at the earlier hearings.
Indrani’s lawyer argued before the judge S M Chandgade that police were trying to create “a media trial“.
The remand application of police stated that the planning to kill Sheena’s brother Mikhail started from Kolkata. Mikhail has alleged that Indrani had tried to kill him too.
The Mumbai police had said yesterday that digital superimposition of the profile of Sheena Bora had matched with the skull recovered from a forest in the neighbouring Raigad district.
Police also maintained that they had not yet given a “clean chit” to former media baron Peter Mukerjea - Indrani’s husband - in the case.
The matching of digital superimposition with skull would be important in establishing that the human remains found in the forest in Pen tehsil of Raigad are of Sheena, the daughter of Indrani Mukerjea.
Indrani, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her former driver Shyamvar Rai have been arrested on the charge of murdering Sheena and disposing of the body in a Raigad forest in April 2012.
Peter Mukerjea, though not an accused, was questioned extensively yesterday at the Khar police station here for the third day in a row in the Sheena murder case.
Police are also probing Peter and Indrani’s financial transactions.
The car used to take Sheena’s body to Raigad has been recovered and traced to a third-party owner, a senior officer had said last night.
Police also claimed that an employee of Indrani’s company sent e-mails in Sheena’s name after her murder, he said.
On Thursday, the police had claimed that Indrani had confessed to murdering Sheena.
Ribeiro seeks restraint on media ‘trial’
Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Julio Ribeiro has urged the Bombay High Court to restrain the media from conducting ‘trial’ in the Sheena Bora murder case.
Ribeiro, on September 3, wrote a one-page letter to Chief Justice of Bombay High Court Mohit Shah seeking the court’s intervention to stop the ongoing “media trial” in the case.
“Everyday the media is investigating the crime. They have already convicted the accused persons even as the probe is at a nascent stage. This daily media trial should not be allowed,” Ribeiro said.
The former police commissioner has sought court to intervene and put a stop to this.
The court, if it wishes, can take suo moto cognisance of the letter and can convert it into a public interest litigation.