Sheena murder: Call records place Indrani in Pen when body was dumped

The police are steadily tying up the loose ends in the high-profile Sheena Bora murder case in which two major developments have emerged - not only have the DNA reports confirmed that the bones recovered from Pen, Raigad are Sheena's remains, but cops also revealed that call records place Indrani Mukerjea - Sheena's mother, accused in the murder - in Pen, at the same time that the body is suspected to have been dumped there in April 2012. Mumbai Police see both these developments as essential evidence that will strengthen their case in court.

Sheena murder: Skeletal remains found in Raigad match Indrani and Mikhail's DNA

Indrani Mukerjea was produced at Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate's court on Monday, when she was sent to judicial custody. Pic/PTI

Tracking Indrani
The first person to be arrested in the 2012 murder case was Shyam Rai, who worked as Indrani's driver. He had confessed to Sheena's murder and also told cops when and where he, Indrani and the third accused, Sanjeev Khanna (Indrani's ex-husband) dumped her body in Pen on April 25, 2012.

These details have now been corroborated by Indrani's mobile phone records. In fact, Indrani's call detail record (CDR) perfectly corroborates the murder sequence that the cops have laid out so far. "After learning the exact dates and timing of the murder and the disposal of the body, we went through the call details of Indrani. We looked up who had called her, sent her text messages.

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The most important thing we learnt was the location of Indrani's mobile phone. The records show that her phone was in the jungle area in Raigad at the same time that the body was dumped there," said a cop from Khar police station. "Her location matched the murder sequence exactly, most crucially in the Raigad jungle, which Indrani cannot deny.

From the evening when Sheena was picked up and murdered in the car, till the next day when her body was taken to Raigad in the wee hours, all locations match with that of Indrani's phone. This is a crucial piece of evidence," the official added.

DNA confirmed
After a frenetic search for DNA samples from Sheena's remains, a forensic team was sent along with the Mumbai Police to Gagode Budruk village in Pen, where the driver Shyam said the body had been dumped. mid-day reported how the team found skeletal remains on Aug 28, over three years after the incident, thanks to a local who remembered where the spot was (‘Cops find remains at crime scene, thanks to Police Patil', August 29).

Sheena murder: Cops reconstruct crime in Indrani Mukerjea's presence

The police had recovered almost the entire skeleton from the crime scene. It was eventually the thigh bone that helped to match the remains with Sheena's DNA. "The DNA has matched and the report was given to Mumbai Police on Monday afternoon," confirmed Satish Mathur, director general (legal and technical) the state-run Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Kalina, which carried out the tests.

An official from FSL said, "Mumbai police had asked for the DNA report on an urgent basis. Our five forensic experts worked on the case on a priority basis. Indrani's blood samples were taken, samples were also taken from Mikhail (Sheena's brother)."

"The most important body parts for DNA are the teeth or the thigh bone. In the case we had thigh bone of the body recovered from Raigad. However, as it was three years old, we had to do a lot of work on the bone. Even after the DNA matched, we did several re-tests to cross-check the results. Only after the final confirmation was the report made," the official added.