Behind Bars in Byculla by Jigna Vora

Author:Jigna Vora
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789353056483
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2019-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

14

THE KILLING OF J. DEY

On the rainy afternoon of 11 June 2011, one piece of news spread among the city’s journalists. A journalist had been shot in broad daylight. The telephone line at the police control room rang non-stop. Other journalists wanted to know if it was true or just fake news doing the rounds.

Soon, reports confirmed that fifty-six-year-old Jyotirmoy Dey had been shot near his residence in Hiranandani Gardens, Powai. Later, another update confirmed that J. Dey, as he was famously known, was dead.

J. Dey was the investigations editor at Mid-Day. At around 2.30 p.m. on the fateful day, he was returning home after meeting his mother Bina at her Amrut Nagar house in Ghatkopar. Minutes before reaching home, Dey had called his wife to inform her that he would reach in the next 10–15 minutes. By 2.45 p.m., when Dey reached the main road leading to Hiranandani Gardens, four men on two bikes opened fire at him. J. Dey, who was on a motorcycle too, collapsed instantly. He was first rushed to a nearby hospital, which was ill-equipped to treat such severe injuries. He had five gunshot entry wounds and four exit wounds on his body. By the time he was taken to the Hiranandani Hospital, he had succumbed to them.

J. Dey’s murder sent shock waves in the journalist fraternity across the country. The six-foot-three imposing man had been one of the top crime reporters. Many juniors looked up to him. Even before he was laid to rest, theories about the possible motive behind his killing began to surface.

Some said that it was the powerful oil mafia that he had irked with his exposés. Some cited the story about red sandalwood smuggling that he was working on as a probable reason. J. Dey’s probe about a senior cop’s close link with Dawood Ibrahim was another theory that floated around, while some believed that perhaps he had rubbed the underworld the wrong way through his reports.

*

With the onset of the monsoon that year, I had finally found the time to visit Sikkim with my family, a trip that we had planned for months. The pristine, lush valleys were a soothing relief. We were in the picturesque town of Pelling on the afternoon of 11 June 2011, when my Blackberry phone began beeping continuously. The screen flashed Hussain Zaidi’s name, my editor at the Asian Age.

‘What, sir?’ I said, in jest. ‘Can’t I enjoy a vacation without thinking about work?’

‘J. Dey has been shot dead,’ he replied bluntly. ‘Confirm it and file a story. Get all the details.’

The news made me gasp. I gazed at my phone wondering how a journalist could be shot dead in a city like Mumbai. The first person I thought of contacting was Himanshu Roy, who was joint commissioner of police (crime) back then. I promptly dialled Roy’s number. The siren of a police jeep wailed in the background, as Roy spoke in a voice laced with urgency. He was on his way to Powai, where the murder had taken place.

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