Took 6 mins to carry body from car to burn site, says Shyamvar Rai

Mumbai: Shyamvar Rai, an accused-turned-approver in the April 2012 Sheena Bora murder case, on Tuesday told a sessions court that it had taken up to six minutes to carry Sheena’s body from the car to the spot where it was burnt. He said they had left the place as soon as the body caught fire.

He also said that he had not smelt of any foul odour from the dead body but he could smell the perfume used by Sheena’s mother, Indrani Mukerjea, the main accused in the murder case.

Answering the defence lawyer’s questions, Rai said that the day Sheena was murdered he had received phone call from Sheena’s biological brother Mekhail, who was talking about medicines, but Rai said now he could not recollect exactly what medicines he was talking about. According to defence, there was a 69-second conversation between them.

When advocate Sudeep Pasbola and Gunjan Mangla asked Rai if, after the murder, Sheena’s body was put in the bag, how was it positioned, Rai (who was sitting on a stool in the witness box) stood up on the stool and then squatted and said the
body was kept in that position.

Answering other questions, he also said that it took five to six minutes to put the body in the bag and around same amount of time to bring the body from car to the spot and set it on fire.

He also said that the body was burnt on a slope which was around 70 feet away from the spot where the car was parked so later they did not see the fire from the road too.

Rai also told the court that they had bought a can of petrol from a petrol pump en route with the purpose of destroying the body.