MUMBAI (Web Desk) – The former chief executive of Indian media group Star India has been arrested in connection with a murder case that is gripping the country.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Peter Mukerjea, one of India’s top media bosses, late on Thursday in connection with the probe into the 2012 murder of his stepdaughter Sheena Bora, the Indian Express reported.
He has been booked under IPC Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender).
Peter’s arrest, the fourth in the case, came hours after the CBI filed a chargesheet against Sheena’s mother Indrani, her stepfather Sanjeev Khanna, and Indrani’s former driver Shyamvar Rai in the Esplanade court in Mumbai.
His wife, Indrani Mukerjea, is accused along with her driver and ex-husband of strangling Sheena Bora to death before dumping her body in a forest and setting it alight.
Bora, 22, was murdered in April 2012 and her burnt body was discovered the following month in woods in India’s western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.
Indrani was arrested in August on suspicion of murdering the young woman, who was having an affair with Peter Mukerjea’s son from a previous marriage.
Peter Mukerjea was chief executive of Fox-owned Star India from 1997 to 2007 before leaving to start his own television venture and is seen as one of India’s most successful media magnates.
“The Central Bureau of Investigation has today filed charge sheet in the alleged murder of Ms. Sheena Bora against three private persons, including her mother, on charges of criminal conspiracy, abduction, murder, destruction of evidence, giving false information, creation and use of forged documents etc,” the CBI statement said.
The official at the CBI confirmed that the others charged were Indrani’s driver Shyam Rai and former partner Sanjeev Khanna.
India’s newspapers and TV news channels have been abuzz with details of the scandal since it first broke, with many carrying complex family trees illustrating who’s who in the case.
Various motives have been put forward, including a financial dispute over property dealings and a dislike of Bora’s relationship with Peter Mukerjea’s son, Rahul.
Mumbai police initially registered the case before the CBI, India’s leading investigating agency, took it over in September.
