In what may seem to be the typical climax of the Feminist debate on sexual liberation of women that triggered controversy amongst the sections of society, particularly the orthodox ones, with an epic video starring Bollywood Glam Doll Deepika Padukone, the mystery shrouds the death of Sheena Bora who was strangled to death by her near and dear ones.
What makes the case more sensational that it is yet to be ascertained by the cops that whether she was the daughter or the sister of socialite Indrani Mukerjea? Then why has Indrani Mukerjea’s story hooked the entire nation?
There are certain pre-requisites for a crime that grab the attention of a nation: A plot spins around a small-town-turned high-society including a spine shivering big-city crime that left shattered established notions and customaries of morality and prevalent boundaries of inhuman behaviour besides layers of complex sub-plots, unexplained questions and contradictory, competing events that obfuscate the identity of the criminal and his motive.
The alleged murder mystery of Sheena Bora, Indrani’s daughter/sister, however, has a lot more shockers, to hold us in awe of the victims and the perpetrators. Just the basic premise of the mystery — mother allegedly killing her daughter, chopping and burning the body and then dumping it in a forest–is implausible, indeed stranger than fiction.
The two-decades of horrors compressed into one, has the combined elements of all the other horrible crimes that linger in the collective psyche of our society. Murder of Aarushi Talwar meets the roasting in Tandoor of Naina Sahni meets the hacking and charring of what was once Neeraj Grover.
Very few crimes have the potential to shake the foundations of every human relation we hold close to our hearts: husband’s with wife; mother’s with children, brother’s with sister. Even fewer are rooted in every deadly sin we have heard of: incest, greed, treachery, deceit, lies, lust, adultery…
Then there are the questions, the doubts that keep us engaged with the whodunit and its attendant whydunit?
Where the biological father of Sheena and her brother are? How and why would Sanjeev Khanna, Indrani’s second husband, get involved in the crime especially when his marriage ended acrimoniously, after several legal cases? Why would he kill Sheena?
Why did the brother not care to find out where his sister had disappeared? How did a young man so passionately in love that it allegedly led to a murder let Sheena disappear without a trace? How could a young girl, socially active, employed, with a functional family simply vanish and nobody cared?
What is the motive? Financial? That would not be so difficult to crack if somebody followed the basic rule of investigation: follow the money. Tracking down bank transactions between Indrani and Sheena would, needless to say, nail it. But, what if there are deeper, bigger motives at play?
Still there are intellectuals who, for the sake of satisfying their intellectual glands, instead of demanding speedy trial of the issue are keeping themselves preoccupied with their earlier agenda.
Who will take up the issue then? Will Sheena’s assassins ever be brought to the Book? Still the very incident has shaken the very foundations on which Indian society has been standing for ages. Who knows what lies beyond the clouds? Let us see.
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