MUMBAI: A former Indian media executive has been arrested on suspicion of murdering her daughter for having an affair with her stepson, Mumbai police said on Thursday, in a case gripping India.

Indrani Mukerjea is accused, along with two others, of strangling Sheena Bora to death in 2012 before dumping her body in a forest in western Maharashtra state and setting it alight.

“We have arrested two accused, the other is her driver Shyam Rai. After they appeared in court we got custody until 31st August”, deputy police commissioner Dhananjay Kulkarni said.

Kulkarni said a third suspect, Sanjeev Khanna, reported to be a former husband of Mukerjea, had been arrested in Kolkata in West Bengal state for alleged involvement in the murder.

“We are trying to get remand from a Kolkata court to bring him to Mumbai.

We’re hoping he will arrive this afternoon,” Kulkarni said. Mukerjea, who was a co-founder and a former executive with Mumbai-based television company INX Media, is currently married to ex-Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea, believed to be her third husband.

Indian media widely reported Khanna to be Indrani Mukerjea’s second husband, while the victim was the daughter from a previous relationship.

India’s newspapers and TV news channels were abuzz with details of the scandal on Thursday, with many carrying complex family trees illustrating who’s who in the case.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2015

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