The mellow candlelight announced that Mid Day’s crime reporter Jyotirmoy Dey, who was shot dead in Mumbai on Saturday, would live on and inspire others of his tribe to be fearless.
This candle light vigil was special. Journalists gathered at the Mahatma Gandhi statue at MG Road to honour a much-loved and respected journalist.
Flames flickered, and palms shielded them from the sudden burst of rain. The mellow candlelight announced that Mid Day’s crime reporter Jyotirmoy Dey, who was shot dead in Mumbai on Saturday, would live on and inspire others of his tribe to be fearless.
Many of those gathered knew Dey well. Some had only met him briefly. There were a large number of those who did not know him personally, but wanted to show that they cared for one of their own.
“This is yet another case of one who chose not to take police protection, because that might have cut him off from his sources,” said Preety Srinivasan, a journalist from City Plus, who asserted that such violence had no place in a democracy. “It was a brutal killing, one that we should all protest,” said Om Prakash, a press photographer.
“I worked for Mid Day. I used to edit his columns,” one of those present said. A placard she carried read, “You may silence journalists, but you cannot silence the truth.” Aditya Anand, editor of Bangalore edition of Mid Day, said, “We are here because we knew Dey personally.”
No one wanted to speculate about who might have been behind the brutal attack.
“Don’t ask me who killed him, was it D company or Chota Shakeel. I don’t know. He’s been doing what he was doing for the last two decades, and he was among the best in his field,” said a close friend of the slain journalist who did not wish to be named.
And are there fears of such attacks among the gathered journalists?
“I had a narrow escape in Chennai in 1999, I was nearly bumped off, on the road. It was the oil mafia. There was a perception of threat,” said Vijay Grover, chief of bureau, News X, adding that in Karnataka, reporting on the mining lobby could be fraught with risk. “The nexus between politicians and the mafia would work against journalists,” he said.
City police commissioner BG Jyotiprakash Mirji visited briefly to assure those present that such an incident would not occur in Bangalore.
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