Siddharth Das talks to reporters in Kolkata today. (AFP Photo)
Sheena Bora's biological father has told NDTV that if his ex Indrani Mukerjea killed their daughter, "I want her hanged." Siddharth Das, who lives in Kolkata, has also denied reports that three months ago, he placed an anonymous call to the Mumbai police to warn that Ms Bora had been murdered in 2012.
Mr Das says he lived with Ms Mukerjea at her parents' home till 1989; they did not marry, and did not see each other after they split up in 1989, he said. Visits to meet his children Sheena and Mekhail, who were being brought up by their maternal grandparents appeared unwelcome, he said. So he shared his phone number with Ms Bora, who used it years later to phone him once in 2000. He has not been in touch at all with Mekhail, who Ms Mukerjea is now accused of attempting to murder.
After leaving Mr Das, Ms Mukerjea married Kolkata businessman Sanjeev Khanna, had a daughter with him named Vidhie, then married former TV mogul Peter Mukerjea, and moved to live a posh life with him in Mumbai. In this time, she had reconnected with the Bora children, but was particular about presenting them always as her younger siblings.
Ms Mukerjea, a former media executive, was arrested last week in Mumbai for murdering Ms Bora, then 24 years old, in April 2012 in Mumbai. She has denied any wrongdoing, and, in lengthy interrogation, has maintained that Ms Bora, moved to the US three years ago and was not strangled by her in collusion with her second husband, Sanjeev Khanna, and her driver, both of whom have also been arrested.
The police says that after killing Ms Bora in a hired car, the trio of suspects set the corpse on fire in a forest on the outskirts of Mumbai. An anonymous phone call three months ago warned that Ms Bora has been killed by her own mother.