​By Ranjona Banerji​
The conviction of gangster Chhota Rajan for the murder of journalist J Dey is significant in any number of accounts. That a powerful gangster was actually brought to trial and subsequently held guilty and that a journalist killed in the line of duty has found justice are extraordinary.
At the time he was shot by assailants on motorcycles close to his home in the Powai suburb of Mumbai in 2011, Dey was 55 and Crime Editor of Mid-Day. He was apparently working on a book about Mumbai’s gangsters, which included Chhota Rajan. Dey was a former colleague at Mid-Day many years before that, when he worked largely on environmental issues. Even though the heyday of Mumbai’s formidable underworld was long over by the 1990s, the fascination with the city’s gangsters remains constant, across the news media, films, TV serials and books. In the years between when I knew Dey and the time of his terrible murder, he had firmly established himself as an expert on gangster-land and many younger crime reporters considered him a mentor.
The nexus between the police and the underworld in Mumbai was never a secret and it took every effort of the journalistic community to push for justice in J Dey’s case. Mid-day, the Mumbai Press Club, associations all put relentless pressure on the state administration to ensure that justice was done. It is unlikely that there would have been convictions without this effort. For Dey’s wife (also a former colleague) and family, there is hopefully some closure and a sense of relief that his murderers have not slipped through the cracks.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/chhota-rajan-8-others-get-life-for-cold-blooded-murder-of-j-dey/articleshow/64008097.cms
However, there was a terrible consequence to this justice for a fellow journalist, Jigna Vora. Soon after Dey’s murder, her name started doing the rounds in media circles, of somehow being involved. That she had informed Chhota Rajan of Dey’s whereabouts, that her ambition had led her to snitch on Dey. There is a gossip, which we all take part in, and there are malicious lies.
Where the community came together for Dey, it did not for Vora. Many journalists themselves reported with glee on how Vora was definitely involved, her name and character vilified. The police fed the media the story, as it now turns out, and the media lapped it up with glee. Vora, a single mother, was jailed for months until she got bail. She has now been acquitted of all charges seven years later. The cost to her state of mind and family are incalculable. Members of the Network of Women in Media (NWM) who visited her in prison report that she wanted nothing to do with her former profession – which is hardly surprising.
S Hussain Zaidi, her editor at Asian Age at the time, has written this excoriating piece on Vora was targeted and attacked. He too paid the price for standing by her.
https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/cover-story/j-dey-murder-case-verdict-conspiracies-that-did-jigna-vora-in/articleshow/64008004.cms
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There are some difficult lessons here for the media. In our reactions, in our propensity to believe what suits us, in our inbuilt prejudices. And most of all for our double standards.
Ranjona Banerji​ is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal