Strictly followed Indrani’s orders, says former secretary

Kajal Sharma, former personal secretary to Indrani Mukerjea, the prime accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, today told a special CBI court here that she had had no knowledge of the conspiracy.

Sharma, also a prosecution witness in the case, was crossexamined for the second day today by advocate Shrikant Shivde, the counsel for Peter Mukerjea, Indrani's husband and a co-accused in the case.

Sharma had told the CBI that Indrani had forced her to forge Sheena Bora's signature on a resignation letter and on a letter seeking cancellation of Bora's leave and licence agreement with her employer. This purportedly happened after Sheena's death.

Sharma today told special judge J C Jagdale that she had merely followed "official orders from her boss" Indrani in setting up a Skype account for accused Shyamvar Rai, who later became approver in the case, writing a fake resignation letter pretending to be Bora, and forging the deceased's signature on the same.

“Until the police discovered the murder, my eyes had been closed to reality. I had worked with Indrani with the belief that she was my boss who could never give me any wrong instructions. Therefore, I would blindly follow all her instructions without getting into whether they were right or wrong," Sharma said.

“I believed at the time that as a loyal employee, I was to follow all instructions given by my boss,” she said.

Sharma was responding to Shivde's questions on whether or not she deemed it right to have forged Bora's signature on the resignation letter after her alleged killing.