Answers blowin' in Sid's 'no comments'

Siddhartha Das after meeting the police
team. Picture by Mayukh Sengupta

Kinsuk Basu and Tamaghna Banerjee, TT, Calcutta, Sept. 2: Two police officers from Mumbai tonight questioned Siddhartha Das, who claims to be the father of Sheena Bora and whose version has some elements that do not tally with other accounts. The Mumbai team, accompanied by five personnel from Dum Dum police station, reached Siddhartha's house around 7.55pm. Inspector Parmeshwar Gamle, the investigating officer in the Sheena murder case, led the police team that met Siddhartha.

Around 9.45pm, an hour and 50 minutes after Siddhartha's questioning began, the Mumbai police team left, saying they could question him again.

Around 20 minutes after the team left, Siddhartha came out of his ground-floor home, his face covered with a white dupatta and sporting a red baseball cap.

By then, a battery of journalists had rattled the grille door, relentlessly rang the calling bell and knocked on the windows.

At one point, he opened the door, peeked through the curtains, drew himself back and shut the door.

After stepping out, Siddhartha said: "I have co-operated with the police in every manner but I have been instructed not to reveal what I had said."

Did they ask you about Indrani and Sheena?

Siddhartha: "Yes. I have answered whatever they asked me."

Did they record your statement?

"I have read and signed a written record of my statements before the Mumbai police team and have cooperated with them in every possible manner. I have also told them that I am not hiding anything."

Did the officers question your wife?

Siddhartha: " Bolbo na (I won't say)."

Did they ask you to go to Mumbai?

Siddhartha: "Not yet. The police have told me that if needed, they would contact me again."

Did they ask for your DNA sample?

Siddhartha: "No comments." (He had yesterday said he was ready to undergo a DNA test to prove he was the father of Sheena. Elaborate paperwork is involved and the court's permission needed for such a test.)

Did they ask for any clarifications on Sheena's date of birth?

Siddhartha: "No comments."

Did they ask if you and Indrani ever got married?

Siddhartha: "No comments."

Police sources said the questions revolved around Siddhartha's relationship with Indrani.

"The questioning was about whether he had any evidence to prove that Sheena was their child," a Mumbai police officer said. "We also wanted to know when was the last time Siddhartha had interacted with Indrani and how he came to know about Sheena's death. There is no reason to believe everything that he has been claiming."

When the police team reached the rented house where Siddhartha has been living with his wife and son for the past two years, the door was locked from outside.

An officer of Dum Dum police station rang the calling bell four times till the landlady opened the door and took the cops in, straight to the first floor.

The Dases stay on the ground floor. Siddhartha and his wife were taken to one of the rooms of the landlord on the first floor where three policemen, two from Mumbai and one from Dum Dum police station, started speaking from 8.15pm.

Around five hours earlier, another set of officers had gone to an Alipore house from which Sanjeev Khanna, Indrani Mukerjea's former husband, had been arrested and seized his laptop.

An officer said the laptop could provide information about Sanjeev's possible interactions with Indrani both before and after Sheena's purported murder in 2012. Sanjeev is now in police custody in Mumbai.

A police officer in Mumbai told The Telegraph Indrani's daughter Vidhie had called up Sanjeev in Calcutta the day Indrani was arrested. "She called up Sanjeev in the morning of August 25 and told him 'Mumma has been arrested'," an officer said.

The Mumbai police team seized Sanjeev's laptop from a house on Belvedere Road in Alipore, where Sanjeev had been staying allegedly since the news of Indrani's arrest broke. He was arrested from this house, which belongs to one of his friends, Ajay Rawala.

"Sanjeev re-established connection with Indrani in 2010 to try and get in touch with his daughter Vidhie," the officer from Mumbai said. "Every time Sanjeev wanted to access his daughter, he had to go through her. There was no access to his daughter's phone also unless Indrani allowed it."

Sources said Mumbai police had already set up a technical team to look into call details and check for possible evidence in laptops and other electronic gadgets.

The police have already seized Sanjeev's mobile phone.

Additional reporting by Mayukh Sengupta, Soumen Bhattacharjee and Amrita Ghosh.