Mumbai: The cloud of suspicion hanging over Mikhail Bora, the son of the prime accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, Indrani Mukerjea, has thickened. Considered so far by the Mumbai Police to be one of the ‘victims’ of Indrani’s cruelty towards her own children, Mikhail has not been seen or heard from over the last few days since he landed in Mumbai, where his mother has been spending nights in a police lock-up. His claims of opening up a pandora’s box have so far sounded hollow, while the stories about him pouring in from Guwahati do not give much credence to his claims of being ‘tortured,’ ‘exploited’ or ‘deprived’ by his own mother. Instead, since mid-2012, Mikhail had been enjoying a luxurious lifestyle till a few months ago — at least that’s what people who know him well in the picturesque capital of Assam claim.
“Known for his company, rash driving and inclination towards questionable substances, Mikhail has always been a boy in the neighbourhood to keep a distance from. He didn’t have too many friends till 2012, when he was struggling with running Chanakya Nir, the private guesthouse operated from within the house of his grandfather, Upendra Bora, and a rising financial crunch forced the Boras to shut down the three-roomed guesthouse much before Sheena’s death. Till that point, Mikhail used to roam around on a second-hand motorcycle and a Maruti Esteem that was mainly used to pick up guests booked into Chanakya Inn from Gopinath Bordoloi Airprot or Guwahati railway station,” said a local resident of Sundarnagar in Guwahati.
But then, in late-2012, Mikhail was seen flaunting a brand new black Tata Aria, a luxury SUV, on the streets of Guwahati and Shillong, the popular weekend spot in the region. “We could notice that things had suddenly changed in the Bora family. Maidservants were brought back, long-standing dues in provision shops were paid and three pet dogs, including a Golden Retriever and English Mastiff, were seen in Chanakya Nir. We used to wake up with dozens of empty foreign liquor bottles dumped outside their house,” adds the neighbor, refusing to be identified.
“Mikhail used to travel frequently to Cherrapunjee, Sohra and Shillong along with his new set of friends and the Aria was their preferred mode of transport. He started spending more on his clothes, grooming himself and buying expensive handsets and electronic equipment. The Boras were rocking it,” said a professional driver who drove Mikhail’s vehicle for a few days, leaving the job immediately after. “Things took a turn when, on one of those days, Mikhail met with a road accident while driving his favourite SUV in the Dispur area. A case was filed by the local police, his vehicle was confiscated and Mikhail himself landed up in a private hospital on G S Road, where medical treatment comes at a very high cost,” said a source. After almost a fortnight, he came back home. A few days later, the neighbours saw him roaming around in a modified, convertible Mitsubishi Lancer. “We do not know from where he suddenly got these funds. It is anyone’s guess. Maybe Pori (Indrani) was keeping Mikhail happy, we thought,” said the neighbour.
But like the fast rise, their fall, too, happened fast — maybe faster. The Aria never came back, the Labrador went missing, the Goden Retriever was not heard barking anymore and the Boras were left only with the English Mastiff. The neighbours could figure out that the flow of money had suddenly snapped. Mikhail was back on an old Yamaha RX100 and most of his friends from the ‘good times’ disappeared for good.
