Why Chhota Rajan got J Dey — the fearless crime journalist — murdered
Seven years after the murder, the gangster has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
On May 2, gangster Chhota Rajan, along with eight other accused, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey who was killed seven years ago in Mumbai.
Another journalist Jigna Vora, made an accused after Rajan claimed she “instigated” him to kill Dey, was acquitted.
Dey was shot dead at Hiranandani Gardens in Mumbai's Powai area on June 11, 2011 while he was returning home on his bike.
He was a crime and investigative reporter for the eveninger Mid-Day in Mumbai, and had done numerous stories on the Mumbai underworld and the oil mafia. His work had also got him on the wrong side of some police officers, whose alleged wrongdoings his stories had exposed.
But how did Dey rile up Rajan to the extent that the gangster ordered a hit on the journalist’s life? The answer lies in the changing equations of the Mumbai underworld, in the inflated ego of a gangster who was afraid his power might be slipping away, and in the courage of a journalist who refused to be cowed down.
During the time that J Dey was reporting, Chhota Rajan had already fallen out with Dawood Ibrahim, and the clout of another of Dawood’s lieutenants, Chhota Shakeel, was growing.
Rajan had famously parted ways with Dawood after the 1993 Mumbai blasts, saying he did not wish to work with a “traitor”.
“Dawood is a traitor... by executing the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, Dawood has proved that he is a traitor and I do not support traitors... which is why I have parted ways with him,” Rajan had said.
He had been at pains to establish himself as the more “patriotic” gangster, and after Dey’s murder, had tried to portray that the journalist was close to the “anti-national” Dawood Ibrahim, worked for the ISI, and hence wanted to make Rajan look bad.
The CBI charge sheet filed in Dey’s murder case quotes Rajan as saying: “J Dey was writing many articles against me in newspapers. Hence I contacted him and enquired politely whether he has any personal enmity with me. He declined but continued writing against me.. like my gang has become weak and that I am sick, my loyal people have left me etc. All such write-ups of J Dey angered me. Hence I developed an impression that he had started working for the Dawood gang. I tried to convince him before killing him. But he did not listen. I am not sure whether he was really close to Dawood gang…but his writings made me feel like that.”
However, many believe that Rajan’s motives for separating from Dawood were less exalted – he was simply threatened by the growing power of Chhota Shakeel, and Dey’s stories were bringing out this aspect.
Not that Shakeel shared a favourable equation with Dey. In fact, soon after the murder, journalist Abhijit Majumder, one of Dey’ colleagues, wrote in Hindustan Times: "At the peak of Mumbai’s underworld days of the ’90s, Dawood’s key man, Chhota Shakeel, had called him while he was riding his bike. Shakeel calmly told him in Bambaiya Hindi: 'Tu abhi Vikhroli se ja raha hain, raincoat fold kar ke bike ke saamne rakha hain... udaa doon kya tereko? (You are at Vikhroli now, on your bike, and you’ve kept your raincoat folded and tucked near the bike’s visor. Should I ask my men to bump you off right now?'
Dey later told me that although he got cold sweat, something went 'off' in his head. It was for him a rare moment of fear and anger. He told Shakeel: 'Tu mera permission maang raha hain kya? Udaana hain toh udaa na, m********d (Are you asking my permission to kill me? Why don’t you go ahead and do it).'"
There is, however, truth in the claim that Dey’s stories made Rajan “look bad”.
On May 30, 2011, Dey wrote an article titled “Did Rajan plan hit on Kaskar”, in which he claimed “sources believe the ageing gangster may have plotted the shooting as a desperate attempt to seize a lion’s share of the underworld pie”.
On June 2 the same year, his article titled “Rajan gangsters off to ‘pilgrimages’” claimed that according to the police, members of Rajan’s gang had gone missing from their hideouts, and that his clout and hold were slipping.
These reports took away from Rajan’s image as a fearsome don, and had the potential to cause him business losses.
According to the CBI’s charge sheet, Dey was also writing a book titled Chindi: Rags to Riches about 20 gangsters who had started small, and Rajan was among them. The don objected to being described as “chindi”. The charge sheet says: “Mr Dey was going to expose the fake patriotic mask used by him (Rajan) to secure himself and to accumulate wealth for his family.The book was to have that Rajan had no concern for those who made him big.”
In 2012, Tehelka did a story on Jigna Vora and how it was unlikely she was involved in Dey’s murder. The story attributed another reason for Rajan to want Dey out of the way: “Dey was working on an exposé on a new woman in Rajan’s life”.
According to the story, Rajan’s wife Sujata had long handled the gangster’s finances, and had even gone to jail for it. But Rajan had allegedly married a Filipino national, and was afraid that if Dey revealed that through his stories, he would face 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,” the story says.
Seven years later, Rajan has been punished. It is justice, and the only true tribute to a man who spent his life exposing crime and criminals.