The man who till the weekend was the last to leave the CC&FC bar after several rounds of whisky spent Wednesday night in the Alipore police station lock-up on three chapattis, soya beans and potato curry. And instead of his drinking buddies and hi-bye socialites for company, he shared the cell with a man accused of dacoity.
Sanjeev Khanna's life changed forever with a ring of the doorbell at 20B Belvedere Road on Wednesday evening, when the cops came calling.
But Sanju - to friends at CC&CF - probably had a whiff of things to come when he was alerted last week about the Mumbai police picking up the trail of Sheena Bora's murder. He apparently called up a few friends on the night of August 20 and told them that only a senior minister at the Centre could bail him out of some trouble that he had got into. The friends did not pay heed to this, thinking that Sanju, as usual, had had a peg too many to drink.
Now, as the mother of all murder mysteries unravels, Khanna has been accused of the murder of Sheena, the daughter of his ex-wife Indrani Mukerjea.
The day after Sanju called up some friends at night, Indrani's driver Shamwar Pinturam Rai was arrested in Mumbai for possession of illegal arms and on August 25 based on his statement, Indrani was arrested. Within 24 hours, Khanna was picked up from Alipore.
On Wednesday night, Khanna caught a couple of hours sleep on the floor of the lock-up after penning his statement for the police.
Back at his usual evening haunt - the CC&FC bar - Sanju was the sole talking point. "This is sensational. He was almost part of the furniture at the bar and the house stands divided about taking action against him," said a club source.
If some friends scrambled to "unfriend" him on Facebook, some of his Mayo College buddies were "too shocked to react" to the turn of events. "Till yesterday I believed he couldn't hurt a fly but now some of his friends are saying he must have done it. Money can be the only reason or the fact that Sheena didn't approve of Vidhie (Sanju and Indrani's daughter)," said a CC&FC member.
According to a friend, Sanjeev's alcoholism had drained him and he was in need of help. He was also desperate to spend time with Vidhie, who was studying abroad. "He was like putty in Indrani's hands. She knew that he was down in the dumps and lured him to Mumbai in 2012 (when Sheena was murdered). She must have promised him time with Vidhie and financial help," said a friend of Sanju.
Khanna was described by a common friend of him and Indrani as "a simpleton" who was "no match" for her. "His father was allegedly murdered when he was an infant and he was brought up by his mother in his mamabari in Hastings. When he met Indrani on the party circuit, he fell hook, line and sinker. Though some of us had advised him not to settle down with her, he went ahead and married her," she said.
"She was very, very ambitious. Coming from a humble background she was greedy for the good life and would stop at nothing from climbing the social ladder. Sanju was her ticket to Calcutta's club and party circuit," the friend added.
Indrani had started a placement service and quickly became a popular fixture in the city's party crowd.
After Indrani left Khanna for Peter Mukerjea, and took Vidhie away, he was "a broken man", said a friend. "He never discussed Indrani but wept like a child once while mentioning how much he missed Vidhie.... Now that you point out the timeline of events, Sanju's bouts of bad behaviour in the club escalated since 2012. He had been suspended from CC&FC twice for drunken brawls," he added.
Club sources said Sanjeev's mother is ailing and his brother lives in Bangalore.
