Cracking crime, away from media

The biggest challenge for the Mumbai Police in recent times was solving the murder of senior journalist J Dey. The police did just that. They handled the case professionally by not letting anyone know where the investigations were headed — not the criminals, not the media. This is not the first time that the police used this tactic; they had used it earlier while cracking the modules of the Indian Mujahideen and a few underworld-related cases.

The murder of J Dey on June 11 in the busy area of Powai by unidentified bikers shocked the journalism fraternity. Journalists protested at Mantralaya and met chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, seeking justice.

The police soon took charge. With no clues left behind by the criminals, the field was wide open. Several theories were floated and everything from the oil mafia to the sandalwood mafia to the Kumar Pillai gang to Dey’s property angles to personal enmity hit the headlines.

However, when the case was cracked and seven people owing allegiance to underworld don Chhota Rajan were nabbed, it was clear that the police were on the right track and had purposely distracted the media, whose writing, in turn, led the criminals to believe that they were safe.

The police had a similar experience when they were after the Indian Mujahideen. They always maintained that they had no clue whatsoever about how the group was operating and who was associated with the group that had just come into the news. Then, in September 2008, the police surprised everyone by announcing that they had busted the Indian Mujahideen’s modules.

The police had been tracking the Indian Mujahideen (IM) for over two months. Officers and policemen had fanned out to different cities and did not even inform the local police. Terrorist modules are very hard to bust as even the informants are unable to keep track of the activities. Today, with 20 IM members behind bars, the group is a shadow of its former self.

“We purposely gave various theories to the media,” said a senior police officer, who was part of the team investigating Dey’s murder. “The reason is simple; we did not want the culprits to be alerted, as that would have made reaching them difficult. The murder had imprints of the underworld.” The officer explained that while the media was busy reporting about the role of the oil and sandalwood mafia, or the role of a senior cop, the police were on the trail of the suspects.

“A few of the criminals on our records were missing from the city. We also had by that time gone through the CCTV footage, in which the number of the vehicle used by the shooters could be seen. In a clandestine operation, police teams went to different corners of the country and got hold of the actual culprits. All this couldn’t have been possible if we had disclosed our actual investigations to the media,” the officer said.