Police custody of the prime accused in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case --Indrani Mukerjea, Sanjeev Khanna and Shyamvar Rai -- was today extended till September 7 by a local court with the prosecution stating that the ongoing probe is yet to cover a large area and that Indrani remains "uncooperative and a hard nut to crack."
The three were produced before the court of Judge S M Chandgade at suburban Bandra amid tight security with just two days left for the 14-day deadline for police custody to end.
After the court proceedings, they were taken back to Khar police station for further interrogation.
Seeking extension of custody, Special Public Prosecutor Vaibhav Bagade said "the accused (Indrani) remained uncooperative".
"Scope of probe is large. Accused is a hard nut to crack. They have used modern tools like email and Internet to plan the murder. Progress shown is already on record. We have not wasted a single day. They impersonated the victim by creating false email. She (Indrani) created bogus email id. Custody is short considering the vastness of investigation," Bagade said.
He said investigations were underway to ascertain who else helped Indrani and police needed reasonable time for its probe.
"We need to know who else helped her. Emails need to be studied. Crime was committed across jurisdictions. Bank accounts maintained by accused no 2 (Indrani) and accused no 3 (Sanjeev Khanna) are across UK and Mumbai. We need to investigate payments made from these accounts.
"We need to recover accused (Indrani's) credit card. Accused shows complete reluctance to cooperate. Additional offence under section 307 (attempt to murder) was added. The material and person with whom accused no 2 had contact need to be investigated. Police need reasonable time," Bagade said.
Rejecting the prosecution's contentions, the defence said Indrani is not a hardened criminal and accused the police of "conducting a media trial and prejudicing the proceedings".
"There is no medical evidence. Two days of police custody is a humiliation of my client. Accounts cannot be recovered from my client. She is in custody. They have to recover it from bankers," he said.
