Sheena Bora murder case: Villager helps police to locate remains

Watch Video: Police Investigation Reveals How Indrani Mukerjea Kept Sheena Bora’s Murder Under Wraps

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Ganesh Dhene, “police patil” of Hetawane — an honorary title given by the Pen police station to a civilian to help be the “eyes and ears” of the village — and Head Constables S D Magar and K K Mhatre now posted at Vadkhal and Roha police stations respectively were called.

“At first, it was very difficult to identify the spot, the place had changed quite a lot in three years,” said Dhene this evening at his home, 8 km from the crime scene. “I remembered there was a mango tree when I had last been to the spot in 2012. I asked the police to dig beyond the tree,” he said. Sure enough, after an hour of digging, the police unearthed a skeleton at noon. “It was right where we had buried it in 2012. The flesh had decomposed but the skeleton was intact,” Dhene said.

The remains will now be sent to Kalina Forensic Laboratory. To confirm that the body is of Sheena Bora, the DNA profile of the remains should match with that of Indrani.

Dhene, who works as a wedding hall decorator in Raigad’s Pen Taluka, succeeded his father Laxman Dhene as “police patil.” That’s an honorary title given by the Pen police station to serve as the eyes and ears in the village of a stretched police force.

On the morning of May 23, 2012, a year after his father died — and almost a month after the alleged murder — Dhene was passing by the Pen-Khopoli Road in his autorickshaw when he set the murder probe into motion. “It was 10 in the morning and I was driving to Pen for a decoration when I smelled a foul odour coming from a tree,” Dhene said. Parking his autorickshaw, Dhene stepped inside to investigate and a few feet into the shrubbery, he saw a human skeleton. “The body was decomposed. there was no way to tell where the deceased had been a male or female.”

Dhene then contacted the Warsai police chowki in Gagode Khurd village and a constable rushed to the spot. “I remember that a post-mortem was conducted before a decision was taken, I don’t know who took it but the decision was to bury the skeleton where it was found,” Dhene said.

By then, constables Magar and Mhatre, posted at Warsai, had been charged with the disposal. “They called some tribal men nearby and tasked them with burying the body near the mango tree. It was covered with a white cloth,” Dhene said, adding “I had a feeling then that something bad must have happened to that person but did not follow up on the Pen police station’s probe.”

This morning, he helped re-start that probe.

Watch Video: Who’s who in the Sheena Bora murder case

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