Mumbai: Former media baron Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani allegedly siphoned off money from their media company and had also floated a company in the name of Sheena Bora, in whose account they parked a huge amount of money. A thus-far “secret” witness of the investigating agency CBI, Ravina Raj Kohli, revealed the same in court on Tuesday. Ms Kohli further said that Peter and Indrani were known as “Bunty and Babli” in media circles.

The CBI on Tuesday handed over Ms Kohli’s statement to the court. Ms Kohli, Peter’s former colleague, described Indrani as scheming and manipulative and a “woman of dominant nature”. She said that the duo had parked kickbacks from their media company in some unknown bank accounts abroad. She alleged that the duo used company money to receive kickbacks from dummy production companies.

In her statement — a copy of which is with The Asian Age and parts of which were truncated by the CBI — Ms Kohli said that before Indrani married Peter, she ran an HR recruitment agency and started providing HR support to STAR. At the time she tied the knot with Peter, she was providing maximum resources to STAR. Ms Kohli alleged that Indrani manipulated the contract of recruitment from STAR through Peter. Peter allowed Indrani to interfere in company affairs to such an extent that she influenced all his major decisions. Ms Kohli added that at one time, Peter had told her that Indrani was his retirement plan.

Sheena was killed in April 2012, allegedly by her mother Indrani and two others, her first husband Sanjiv Khanna and their driver Shyamwar Rai. The agency has so far chargesheeted Indrani, Khanna, Rai and Peter in the case for their alleged roles.