Guwahati, Aug. 28: Sheena Bora and Mikhail Bora were given in adoption by their mother to their grandmother, according to the first page of an affidavit attributed to "Mrs Indrani Bora" that surfaced today.
The affidavit mentions Sheena was aged four then, Mikhail three and Indrani 20. If the declaration is true, it would mean that Indrani was 16 - a minor - when she gave birth to Sheena and 17 when Mikhail was born. That will also mean Indrani, in police custody on the charge of murdering Sheena, is 42 now.
The date on which the affidavit was filed is not legible. But since Sheena's age has been put at four and her birth certificate says she was born on February 11, 1989, the affidavit may have been filed in 1993.
However, a former classmate of Indrani insisted that she studied in Class X with her in 1982. "I am sure Indrani did her matric in 1982," the former classmate said this evening in reply to a question.
Class X students are usually aged 16 but since schools had lost a year in Assam in the 1980s, most such students were 17 in 1982. By that measure, Indrani would have been 27 or 28 in 1993, not 20, when the affidavit was filed. Her current age then would be 49 or 50.
Only one page of the affidavit became public till this evening. It was not clear whether the affidavit, which surfaced a day after Mikhail met a Mumbai police team in Guwahati, was authentic or not.
Indrani says in the affidavit that "I am mutually separated from my husband Shri S. Das and I have no relation since 1989".
The affidavit does not specifically say that "S. Das" (presumably the mysterious Siddartha Das that neighbours and relatives have been referring to in the past few days) is the father of the children.
If Das indeed was the father, the declaration in the affidavit would mean that the couple separated soon after the boy was conceived. Mikhail - spelt "Mekhail" in the document although Indrani had reportedly told her acquantainces that he was named after Mikhail Gorbachev - was born in 1990. A year earlier, the Berlin Wall had fallen and a year later the Soviet Union would disintegrate - the tumultuous era of Gorbachev's glasnost (something the Mukerjeas cannot be accused of) and perestroika that shook the world.
Indrani's affidavit goes on to add that "my son Mr. Mekhail Bora and daughter Miss. Sheena Bora, aged about 3, 4 years respectively with me and have no relation with my separated Husband to look after them (sic)".
The affidavit says the children are being given in adoption to Indrani's mother Durga Ranee Bora but mentions her step-father Upendra Kumar Bora only in passing in the first page.
"...I have given my said son and daughter to my mother Smti Durga Ranee Bora W/O Shri Upendra Kumar Bora of Sandrapur, RGB Road, P.S. Dispur in the District of Kamrup, Assam, to my children take as a adopted son and daughter from today and I have no any right upon them as mother of the children," says the affidavit, probably drafted by a lawyer. The address matches the current residence of the Boras in Guwahati.
A former editor today said Indrani had told him she was molested by her step-father but the journalist added that he was no longer sure how authentic her statements were.
A close relative of the Boras told The Telegraph today that before Indrani met Das and when she was around 16, she had "married" a top Guwahati doctor's son at the Kamakhya temple. The wedding was unacceptable to the boy's family, a friend of the doctor said. The doctor's son is a well-known lawyer now.
"He was her first husband. Within six months, they had a bitter parting. Their temperaments were very different. The temple wedding was not registered."
Additional reporting by Samyabrata Ray Goswami in Mumbai
