Mumbai : There was bad news in store on Monday for the accused in the top three murder mysteries of 2015 which challenged the wits of the Mumbai police. The decisions taken by the three different courts have confirmed that all the accused involved in these cases would welcome 2016 in their respective lock-ups. The courts in their separate hearings have extended the judicial custodies till January 11, 2016.
The magistrate court on Monday extended the custody of former Star India CEO Peter Mukherjea till January 11. Peter (husband of prime accused Indrani) was arrested on November 19 and was in CBI custody for two weeks after which the Magistrate Court in its decision remanded him in judicial custody.
The Sheena Bora murder mystery – in which Sheena, Indrani’s 24-year-old daughter from a past relationship, was strangled and her body found in a decomposed state in the forests near Raigad – turned out to be a complete family drama and involved the arrests of the high–profile media couple Peter and Indrani Mukherjea.
The case hogged a lot of media attention in 2015. The crime was first exposed when Indrani’s driver Shyamvar Rai was arrested and that led the cops to Indrani and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna. All three of them have been chargesheeted in the case. The CBI had suspected financial transaction as a motive for the murder, and Peter, Sanjeev and Rai have been kept in Arthur Road Jail.
In the second case, the Thane Court on Monday extended the judicial custody of all the four accused corporators in the Suraj Parmar suicide case. The Thane-based builder had allegedly shot himself at his under-construction building on October 7, blaming red tapism and harrasment by the local politicians.
Parmar left behind a 13-page suicide note in which he had allegedly named some politicians and civic offcials but had later scribbled out the same as he feared his family falling victim to torture. The letter was sent to forensic lab which revealed the names of 4 corporators of the Thane Municipal Corporation. They were arrested on December 6 and sent to judicial custody by a local court.
In the most recent murder mystery of the year, the Borivali court pronounced judicial custody till January 11 for all the four arrested in the Hema Upadhyay murder. Hema’s artist husband Chintan, who was arrested on December 22, is in police custody till January 1.
The case, dubbed as the Mumbai double murder, has been in the spotlight from the first week of December after the police found two bodies dumped in a drain in Kandivali. The bodies of Hema and her lawyer Harish Bhambani were wrapped in polythene. Photographer Vijay Rajbhar, the prime accused, is still absconding.
