In what could prove to be a shot in the arm for Mumbai police, which is probing the three-year-old Sheena Bora murder case, a police team on Friday recovered some mortal remains of the 24-year-old from Raigad, where the victim’s body was allegedly dumped.
The forensic examination of these remains, which include a skull and bones, is expected to provide leads in the case where the police are still piecing together the clues to find out the motive behind the alleged murder.
A senior police officer confirmed that the samples were recovered and were being tested to establish whose body is it. A suitcase was also recovered and the soil sample was also sent to the Forensic Science Laboratories at Kalina, according to sources.
“Records led us to a constable who was posted at the Pen police station when the body was first discovered in 2012. After carrying out the basic formalities, he buried the body again close to that spot. On Friday, he took us back to that spot which we dug up and collected the samples,” said another officer.
Tooth, hair scalp and bonesIn a separate development city’s JJ Hospital said that back in 2012, the Raigad district police had preserved the tooth, hair scalp and piece of bones from an unknown body at the hospital.
Hospital Superintendent T.P. Lahane said “The Raigad police had submitted the samples of an unknown body on May 25, 2012 [two days after the body was found], and we had sent a report on this to the police on Dec 13, 2013 stating that they could not determine the age, or the gender of the person on the basis of these samples.” He said in the light of this case, they have handed these samples on Friday to Rakesh Maria and his team for matching it with samples taken from Indrani Mukherjea. The DNA matching would determine if this unknown body was Sheena Bora or not. Earlier, the Raigad police denied preserving any DNA samples or even recording an accidental death report in connection with the recovery of, what the Mumbai police say, was Sheena’s body on May 23, 2012.
Former Star CEO Peter Mukherjea, whose wife Indrani Mukherjea is accused of murdering her daughter Sheena, went to the Khar police station and submitted a written statement. This happened hours after police said that they will not record Mr. Mukherjea's statement till “we have properly interrogated all three accused and are sure of the facts.”
