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HomeEditorialIt’s Chhota Rajan’s turns now

It’s Chhota Rajan’s turns now

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A special MCOCA court in Mumbai granted CBI permission to interrogate gangster Chhota Rajan, who is the prime accused in journalist Jyotirmoy Dey’s murder case. Chhota Rajan was allegedly upset with two articles written by Dey and therefore ordered his killing. Journalist Jigna Vora who is now out on bail, had allegedly instigated Rajan, owing to her own professional rivalry with Dey.

Vora is accused of passing on key information like the number plate of the slain journalist’s motorcycle and his address to the fugitive don. The police had arrested her on November 2011 and she was granted bail in July 2012.

Rajan, who was produced via video link from Delhi’s Tihar Jail told the court that he has received the chargesheet and needs time to go through it. Rajan, a former key aide and lieutenant of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, was arrested at Bali airport in Indonesia on October 25 after he arrived from Australia, and was later deported to India. He is facing around 70 cases in Maharashtra, which includes the J Dey murder case. Dey was shot dead in Powai by motor-cycle borne shooters on June 11, 2011 allegedly at the behest of Rajan. Four persons on two motorbikes fired at least four to five rounds at Dey, who was also riding a bike, from behind near Spectra Building at D Mart in Hiranandani area of Powai.

After the attack, he was rushed to nearby Hiranandani Hospital where he was declared brought dead. Police had claimed the shooters fled the spot after firing. The first charge sheet in 2011 names arrested accused Satiah Kaliya, Abhijeet Shinde, Arun Dake, Sachin Gaikwad, Anil Waghmode, Nilesh Shendge, Mangesh Agawane, Vinod Asrani, Paulson Joseph and Deepak Sisodia.

The sensational J. Dey murder case has brought to the fore the nexus more clearly than all earlier occasions. Having covered the crime beat for around three decades, Dey had naturally developed affiliations in legitimate as well as illegitimate walks of life. Bootleggers, matka-den operators are regular paymasters of crime reporters residing in respective areas. Visionless and routine crime reporters thrive on their money and retire peacefully.

The police told the session’s court in Mumbai that journalist Jigna Vora, an accused in J Dey murder case, had fuelled the dispute between gangster Chhota Rajan and the slain journalist, which likely led to the killing. Crime Branch, which is investigating the Dey murder case, has opposed Vora’s bail application before the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court. Vora was aware of the issues between Rajan and Dey, a senior journalist with city-based tabloid who covered crime, and therefore she added fuel to the fire. This is utter bullshit, the reason so far Mumbai police could not produce any substantial evidences against Vora.

During J Dey murder investigations, media made police authorities life miserable and Home department was always on radar. There how all its began, police traced all those reporters having spoken to Chhota Rajan and any underworld criminal, based on their own published interviews and reports, caught them and called for investigations. Reporters gave lots of excuses, but police made smart stand stating their duty and arrested few one by one and asked them to give explanation in court. That’s how reporters came in control before making any sort of statement about police and home department. Finally, Jigna became victim of circumstances, and got in police clutches, police department is very well aware that she is not 100% at fault. However, she was made scapegoat to control the nuisance of media, surprisingly when Jigna got arrested, no media came forward to protest against her. Rather J Dey’s news took a back seat.

Actually looking at flashback and real story behind the murder, media should strip Mumbai police and rip them apart for planting conspiracy against Jigna Vora. Right from the day one, our newspaper was firm in support of victimized journalist Vora and slain senior journalist J Dey.

The police claimed that Vora had called Chhota Rajan 36 times before J Dey’s murder. The chargesheet shows that there were only three calls between Chhota Rajan and Vora, all made for an interview that Rajan gave to The Asian Age. Police has accused that Vora had sent emails to Rajan containing the photographs and residential address of Dey and the registration number of his motorcycle. The charge sheet does not mention any such emails. Police requested Google to provide her inbox details but under privacy act Google refused to obey. Crime Branch officers told the media that Vora abruptly booked tickets to Sikkim on June 2011 and took off without a sanctioned leave, knowing well that Dey was to be murdered. Vora had travelled to Sikkim along with six friends. All tickets were booked in the first week of April. She had also given an advance notice of leave to her editor. However, police didn’t include these records in the chargesheet.

The police claimed that there was professional rivalry between Dey and Vora and that was her motive to get him killed. Dey wrote that Dawood had left Pakistan. Vora wrote that Dawood was hiding in Pakistan. Bizarrely, the police have used these two stories to argue that there was rivalry between the two journalists. The smear campaign against Vora went to the extent of accusing her of being an extortionist. The papers reported (of course, basing it on police sources) that she was in the business of mediating in property disputes between builders and charged a hefty sum for negotiating a deal. Nobody asked that in a city like Mumbai, where gangsters and politicians are involved in every property dispute, who would pay money to a female reporter for reaching settlements? In the final chargesheet, the police have not mentioned a word on any such mediation activities.

To support this theory, the police have recorded the statement of a crime journalist who has claimed that in May 2010 (a year before the murder), Vora had sent Dey an SMS that roughly translated as, “Do you think that you are very smart?” But the police don’t have the actual text of the SMS. The journalist has claimed that Dey had shown him this SMS at the time. But while Dey was alive, he never told anyone that Vora and he were rivals or for that matter Vora had ever threatened him. In fact, S Hussain Zaidi, under whom Vora was working, was Dey’s mentor and friend. If Vora had ever misbehaved with Dey, it is logical to assume that Dey would have complained to Zaidi about his reporter’s misbehaviour.

Jigna Vora was pursuing a course in journalism from Somaiya College, Mumbai, when she got an opportunity to work with the Free Press Journal as a reporter. In 2006, she joined Mumbai Mirror as a senior correspondent. In 2008, she joined the Mumbai edition of The Asian Age and soon rose to become Deputy Bureau Chief.

Using the media as their proxy, the police built a narrative that Rajan got Dey bumped off because he had provided the Dawood gang crucial information on Rajan. The police didn’t elaborate as to what information Dey might have provided to Iqbal Mirchi or any other D Company member that could have been harmful to Rajan. The media didn’t bother asking what information a journalist could provide on Rajan whose whereabouts are not known even to the police. Reporters didn’t even ask their police sources if there was any evidence to indicate that Dey had met Iqbal Mirchi in London at all. The media even cooked up an imaginary estrangement between Dey and his wife.

Rajan feared that Dey’s story would lead to a family feud. After Dey’s death, some gang members informed a few senior Mumbai Police officials that Rajan tried to convince Dey to not write the story but he didn’t listen. And that’s when he decided to call a hit. This was one of the first credible leads that the police had received after Dey’s death. Why didn’t the police pursue it to get to the bottom of the truth? Clearly, Dey’s killing is the result of a diabolical conspiracy and the case warrants an urgent intervention by the higher courts.

Even today, after so many years of murder, police failed to establish motto and there is no evidence against Jigna Vora. However, now its Chhota Rajan’s turns, let’s see what happens next.

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Vaidehi Taman
Vaidehi Tamanhttps://authorvaidehi.com
Vaidehi Taman an Accredited Journalist from Maharashtra is bestowed with three Honourary Doctorate in Journalism. Vaidehi has been an active journalist for the past 21 years, and is also the founding editor of an English daily tabloid – Afternoon Voice, a Marathi web portal – Mumbai Manoos, and The Democracy digital video news portal is her brain child. Vaidehi has three books in her name, "Sikhism vs Sickism", "Life Beyond Complications" and "Vedanti". She is an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker, OSCP offensive securities, Certified Security Analyst and Licensed Penetration Tester that caters to her freelance jobs.
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