J Dey's Murder: Lessons to be Learnt

In the backdrop of crime reporter J Dey's murder, Sachin Kalbag, Executive Editor, MiD-DAY, speaks about the situation of crime reporting in Mumbai and the unholy alliance between the underworld, the police and the bureaucrats. An interview by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta for Newsclick. The interview was conducted before news reports came in that the Chhota Rajan gang was responsible for Jyotirmoy Dey's killing.

 

 Rough Transcript

Paranjoy Guha Thakuta (PGT): Hello and welcome to Newsclick. I am Paranjoy Guha Thakurta in New Delhi. On the 11th of June, Journalist, Jyotirmoy Dey was brutally murdered outside the residential complex he lived in, in Mumbai in broad day light. He was one of the finest crime reporter in this country. He was known for his investigating reporting. And two weeks after his death there is considerable speculation, as to who were responsible for his death. I have with me here Sachin Kalbag, he is the executive editor of Mid day in Mumbai the Newspaper for which they used to work. Sachin thank you very much for coming here. You know when you look at the circumstances under which Dey was brutally murdered, what was your reaction when you heard it has happened something like this has happened. What was the thought that went through your head and why do you think he was targeted. These are the first few questions I want to ask you.

Sachin Kalbag (SK): First of all I was shocked, any editor would be, any colleague of J Dey was. It was completely unbelievable that in a city like Mumbai, any investigative reporter of the stature of J Dey would be murdered. My first reaction was oh my god! Which story he has done that culminated in his murder. The more I think about this about what stories he has done, what investigating reporting he has done, there could be hundreds of people who could be responsible for this. We have done various stories on the underworld, police corruption, bureaucratic corruption, the mafia, apart from Mumbai the commercial capital of India, it is also possible the mafia capital of India because there are all kinds of mafia, there is water mafia, there is sand mafia, there is oil mafia, there is adulteration mafia.

PGT: Tell us little bit of some the investigating reports that Dey did. Which perhaps you know certainly have antagonised very very powerful and influential elements within the underworld.

SK: That's my point. It 's not just the underworld which is responsible. There are elements in society in Mumbai whether there are builders, whether there are people who are engaged in water trade, whether people engaged in oil trade. They may not be necessarily the underworld in the classical sense of underworld but these sectors have become so criminalised and the organised crime in these sectors is so rampant that it could be any of them. Recently had done several stories on builders, inconsistencies in the legalities of certain buildings. So clearly there are people that he has spoken about openly.

PGT: There are lot of speculations whether it could have been a job which could have been done by certain rogue elements within the Mumbai police. And we keep hearing the names of certain individuals. One police person whose name has been cropped in this case was that of Assistant Commissioner of Police, Anil Mahawal. He himself denied he has nothing to with it. What are the possibilities that it could be not just mafia but corrupt elements within the police department of Mumbai who were unhappy with the kind of investigative report that they were putting up in your newspaper.

SK: The case of Anil Mahabole was intriguing. It is intriguing because since 2007, Anil Mahabole was under the scanner of the anti corruption bureau of Mumbai police. In a report that was submitted to the Mumbai police commissioner as well as the state governments on his links with the underworld. He used to drink and dine with Hasina Parkar who is the direct sister of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim who is now allegedly in Pakistan. When anti corruption bureau of Mumbai police has indicted certain officer it is incumbent on the senior officers to take action against him or at least investigate him further and look into the links. But for four years, nothing of that sort happened and ACP Mahabole continued in the most 'lucrative' zone of South Mumbai. So that created a bit of a problem. Specially, when our other reporter, Tarakant Dwivedi was arrested under the officials secret act'

 

PGT: It is important for you to talk about Tarakant Dwivedi also known as Akela. I understand he wrote reports even before he joined Mid Day about how various kinds of ammunitions and equipments have been purchased by the law enforcing authorities, by the police, by the railway police and Bombay police has been literally kept in the open rain and by writing these investigating he ended up being arrested that too under the officials secret act. How did it happen?

SK: Akela has written report in 2010 about the RPF robbery where you know where the expensive equipment was bought for the protection of the railway premises by the RPF and they were rotting in the rain because there was leaking in the room where the armoury was and the Akela had gone with a photographer to do the story. He wrote the story. The photographer published the where the armoury where the equipment was rotting. Surprisingly, after nine months or ten months he was arrested under the officials secrecy act. Now, the FIR was lodged under section 447 of the Indian Penal Code which talks about unlawful entry. But when Akela went to give his statement to the police, suddenly and mysteriously, the officials secret act was invoked by the senior officer and he was arrested and as you now official secret act is so draconian that it's very difficult to get bail in the lower courts.

 

PGT: Imagine, if this happening in the heart of Mumbai, what kind of message do the rest of the journalists fraternity will get in the rest of the country.

SK: You made a right point. I mean the whole idea of intimidating the Akela was not to intimidate Akela whole on, the idea was to intimidate the media fraternity in general. That you if you fall foul of our interests, then we will get after you. My fear is that the same thing has happened with J. Dey and J. Dey had been with the investigative journalism for two and a half decades. It could be you know that he has written so many stories against so may people that any of those people had grudge against him.

 

PGT: could you tell me more about Dey. He was in his mid fifties, he was brutally assassinated. I was told that he was a tall person 6 ft. 4 inches, but very very gentle, a person who had a lot of warmth for his colleagues. Tell us more of person kind of person Dey was not only as a human being but as a professional. I worked very briefly with him in the early nineties when we actually started our careers.

SK: I was only twenty one and he was in his mid thirties at that time. Even at that time he was very quiet. He was this huge with 6 feet 4 inch guy and our office is very small. He would intimidate everyone with his stature. His personality was exactly the opposite to his crime writing. He would expose the arrogance of the people with an aggression of a heavy weight boxer. But in the office while dealing with people, talking to editors even copy editors in the news desk, he would be extremely polite prefer to say Sir or Madam and he would not do this in jest but would call them very genuinely. He would call me I was twenty years younger to him, he would call me Sir. He was quiet about various things that people working with him four years or five years would not know who is wife was, what he was doing during the day. In fact, several people realised after he died that his wife was a former colleague of ours at mid day. He was so secretive about his personal life. So he would keep quiet, he would keep to his counsel unless there is a breaking story or big story where both of us used to talk at length because there were legal implications, there was documentary evidence we needed. He was very thorough in that. He would not come to my office and say I am doing a story but I don't have any leads, I have no sources. He would come and say this is the fifty five page document that I have got against this guy and let's do this story. So I had the courage for going ahead with story because he gave me the courage that he has got the documentary evidence to back it up.

PGT: If J. Dey's is not to be in vain, if at the end of the day, despite the fact that here was a honest, upright, investigative journalist who sort to expose the corruption in high places, who sort to report about the links between the underworld and police department, about the important politicians, about the influential business people, builders and so on. If his death is not to be in vain, if there are some important lessons, if all of us, if the media fraternity, India and the world has to learn, what according to you is the important lessons that we all need to learn.

SK: I think, first, the media fraternity in India needs to be close knit and fight this menace together because right now with the economic boom in the country, the interest of economic interest of certain sectors have grown so wide and so big that it's difficult for a newspaper like Mid Day or mid size newspaper like Mid Day to fight it alone. Or in the case of IBN Lokmat when it's offices were attacked two years ago. Any of the individual journalists in the rural areas or the so called B towns are attacked what happens is that those cases were unnoticed or if they are noticed after five or six days because of the short attention spans, they are off the pages of the newspapers or the television channels. If there are attacks on journalists, there should be concerted and continuous effort on the part of the journalist organisations as well as media houses to continue the fight. Point number two is crime reporters or investigative journalists should be aware of the dangers that they are to face.

PGU: If journalists indeed have to face certain dangers, if there are certain occupational hazards, how would you ensure that there is at least some sort of protection.

SK: Firstly, understand the signs. In the case of J. Dey he did not speak to me about any of the threat calls he may have got or he did not speak to them about the calls with his colleagues in the immediate crime department. But, if he had received any calls from an interested party. A threat call may be threaten his family, threaten him or threaten him whatever consequences, those signs needed to be taken very very seriously now. Until now journalists had a very nonchalant attitude about threats especially crime reporters. The more threats they get, the more important they are. That is not the case any more. J. Dey's case, should be a wake up call not only to the authorities but also to the media fraternity. There is a clear danger to our lives especially for the so called inconvenient stories. The more we continue the solidarity, the more we are aware of the dangers and we are aware of those dangers in time, quickly, then we can approach the right authorities. In the case of J. Dey, if he was doing an investigative story that I knew would have resulted in his death, I would have told him don't do that story because for me you are more important. Take a number of precautions because your life is more important than the story because there hundred other stories that is to be done.

PGT: Thank you very much Sachin for talking to Newsclick.