In yet another twist in the Sheena Bora murder case, reports have claimed that the forensic samples that Mumbai’s JJ Hospital handed over to the Khar police may not be of the victim.
The hospital had handed over samples of bones and teeth to the police. These samples were the ones that were handed over to JJ Hospital by Pen police in 2012.
They were then sent to the police to Nair Hospital for testing.
Apparently, the Nair Hospital, in its 26 page report, has now said that the samples sent by the JJ Hospital are not of Sheena Bora.
The report quoted JJ Hospital Dean, TP Lahane as saying that they had never claimed that the samples were of Sheena’s.
He said that all that they had put on record was that the samples were given to them by the Pen Police station and it was for the Pen police to determine that the samples belong to which body.
Meanwhile, a local court today extended the judicial custody of key accused Indrani Mukerjea, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyam Rai till October 5 in connection with the Sheena murder case.
The trio, whose judicial custody ended today, were produced before a Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate Court via video-conferencing.
All the three accused, who are lodged in various jails in the city, could not be produced physically due to security reasons.
On September 7, a fortnight after their arrest and prolonged interrogation, the court had remanded Indrani and her driver to judicial custody till September 21 while Khanna was taken to Kolkata where he was produced in a court there.
On September 8, Khanna, former husband of Indrani, too was remanded in judicial custody after their mandatory period of 14-day police custody ended a day before.
Indrani, Khanna and Rai have been arrested on the charge of murdering Sheena and disposing of her body in a Raigad forest in April 2012.
The police had exhumed remains of a body from Raigad forest and later claimed that digital superimposition of the profile of Sheena had matched with the skull recovered from the forest.
The police has also extensively grilled Indrani’s husband Peter Mukerjea, though he is not an accused in the case.
Sheena was allegedly strangled in a car, then her body was burnt and dumped at a forest in Raigad, about 84 kms from Mumbai.
According to police, a team of forensic auditors, chartered accountants, income tax consultants and officers of the Economic Offences Wing have also been scrutinising various companies, investments, properties not only in India but also in UK and Spain, belonging to Mukerjeas as well as the companies owned by them.
Last week, the Maharashtra government decided to transfer the Sheena Bora murder probe to CBI after days of uncertainty on the supervisory role of former Mumbai police chief Rakesh Maria, who was shunted in the midst of the inquiry that he had helmed proactively.
