Had no reason to suspect my wife: Peter Mukherjea

Disbelieved son when he told Sheena was Indrani’s daughter, he says.

Former Star India CEO Peter Mukherjea, husband of former INX CEO Indrani Mukherjea, said on Wednesday he never suspected anything amiss about his wife after the disappearance of Sheena Bora.

In a sensational turn of events, Ms. Mukherjea was arrested for the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora, mistakenly considered previously to be her sister.

“I had no reason to be suspicious as my wife had clearly said that Sheena had been sent to the United States,” Mr. Mukherjea told The Hindu on Wednesday, following the arrest of his wife on Tuesday.

The television honcho revealed that he was himself in the dark about the real nature of relationship between his wife and Sheena, who was 24 at the time of her disappearance. In fact, he was not aware of Sheena going missing.

According to Mr. Mukherjea, his son Rahul was in a relationship with the victim, and had made initial efforts to reach her when she went incommunicado.

“He [Rahul] did try to call her [Sheena] to find out about her whereabouts, but her phone was off. And he waited for her, but she was in the U.S.,” Mr. Mukherjea said.

Ms. Mukherjea’s arrest confirmed to Mr. Mukherjea that Sheena was her daughter, a fact known to Rahul, but disbelieved by Mr. Mukherjea. “He [Rahul] did say that Sheena had told him that she was Indrani’s daughter. When he told me this, I didn’t believe him and dismissed his suggestion as his imagination,” the media honcho said. Asked if he noticed any signs of strife or friction between his wife and her daughter, he said, “I did not notice any bitterness between them.” The knotty family saga which ended in Sheena’s murder got another twist with her brother Mikhail Bora also confirming in Guwahati of the mother-daughter relationship. Mr. Mukherjea, however, did not comment on how his wife had introduced Mikhail to him.

Mr. Mukherjea said he knew about his wife’s former husband Sanjeev Khanna, arrested by the Mumbai and Kolkata police for his alleged involvement in the murder case. Old news reports suggest that the media expansion ventures of the Mukherjeas were far from smooth. Differences arose within the management over alleged mismanagement of the business leading to INX Media’s public fallout with Mr. Mukherjea’s friend and former NewsX CEO Vir Sanghvi.