Written by Sadaf ModakMumbai | September 19, 2025 01:25 AM IST 4 min readSheena Bora’s childhood friend told court on Tuesday that she believed Sheena’s mother, the main accused Indrani Mukerjea, was never happy with her relationship with Rahul Mukerjea.Rahul is the son of Indrani’s then husband, Peter Mukerjea, also an accused in the ‘murder’ case. On Thursday, Sheena’s friend and former classmate, Sanjana Phukan, began her deposition as a prosecution witness in the special CBI court.In her examination-in-chief, Sanjana spoke about her conversations with Sheena over the years, including emails, mentioning her strained relationship with Indrani, the ‘dramas’ surrounding her life and one conversation where Sheena mentioned that she wants to take ‘sanyas’.Emails between them also came under a cloud after a legal argument raised by the defence over their admissibility as evidence. Sanjana told the court that Sheena went to the same school as her and they were classmates in Guwahati from nursery to Class 10. She said that they remained in touch through emails and messages through the years. She also told court that Indrani was never happy about Sheena’s relationship with Rahul Mukerjea, the son of accused Peter Mukerjea, the then CEO of Star TV India, and Indrani’s then husband.“In November 2011, I met Sheena at Guwahati during my wedding. Sheena was there for about a week. During that time, she told me that she was happy with Rahul and maybe in the next year she will marry him,” Sanjana told the court. She said that they remained in touch through the phone almost every week and Sheena had told her that Rahul was not in touch with his father.Similarly, Sheena was also not in touch with Indrani, and that they were happy that way, Sanjana told court about her conversations with Sheena. She said that they remained in touch through messages and emails and she last spoke to her on April 15, 2012. Around April 24-25, 2012, Sanjana said that she had received a text message from Sheena’s phone that she was breaking up with Rahul and was going to change her phone number, but that it should not be shared with him. The text also said that Sheena will be going off social media for some time and that she (Sanjana) should not worry. “I immediately called her. The call was rejected and after that the phone was switched off,” she told the court. She also mentioned how she went to Sheena’s Guwahati home but she did not get any information and that she was also in touch with Rahul. “He told me that he had dropped Sheena at Bandra to go shopping with Indrani at Amarsons to buy a saree for her engagement. He was worried as she had not come home that night,” Sanjana told the court. She said that Rahul had sought legal advice from her and her brother, a lawyer, had told him to go and file a missing report. Rahul had told her that he had tried to file a complaint but it was not taken. The CBI claims that Sheena was murdered on April 24, 2012. Sanjana said that when she learnt of Indrani’s arrest in 2015 through the media, Sheena was being mentioned as Indrani’s sister. “I thought I should speak to the concerned people and tell them that Sheena is not Indrani’s sister but her daughter. Sheena had told me that her mother got her wrong medication for her,” she told the court. Sanjana was shown emails exchanged with Sheena from 2009 to 2012, part of the chargesheet filed by the CBI. Special public prosecutor C J Nandode showed her the emails, which she identified along with her signature on the printouts. The prosecutor then referred to a certificate given by Sanjana under section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, required for authenticating electronic evidence. Indrani’s lawyer, Ranjeet Sangle, opposed the emails from being exhibited as evidence, stating that the certificate was issued by Sanjana herself. He said that last week the CBI had said that in such a case, where a witness is accessing emails as part of the probe, the investigating agency’s officer whose computer is being used, should be the one to give the certificate. Sanjana also told the court that she did not know any rules regarding the certificate. The deposition will continue on Friday.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd