It is a day which journalists, especially crime journalists, in the city do not forget easily. Exactly three years ago on this day, senior journalist Jyotirmoy Dey (fondly known as J Dey) was shot on a rainy afternoon in Powai by two motorcycle-borne assailants. Dey, who was Editor-Investigations in a city tabloid, died soon after as three bullets were pumped into him from close range.
A few days after the incident, Mumbai crime branch claimed to have detected the case after it arrested a total of 11 people, including the alleged main shooter Satish Kaliya. The police had even applied the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case, but three suspects — bookie and builder Vinod Asrani, Paulson Joseph and Jigna Vora — are out on bail.
Fugitive underworld don Chhota Rajan had claimed responsibility for the killing. However, the exact motive behind the killing is still unclear.
The next date of hearing in the case is June 17, when the court is expected to frame charges against all the 11 accused.
Dey's mother and sister, who stay in Ghatkopar, have still not come to terms with the tragedy and lament the fact that nothing has happened in the case so far. "It is three years and nothing has happened. Instead, arrested people are being released on bail," said Dey's mother Bina.
For Dey's peers, he was a colleague they cannot forget. "He was one of those senior crime journalists that youngsters aspired to work with. He neither feared the underworld nor the ruthlessly corrupt builders and state officials that he often wrote about," said one of his former colleagues. Much junior to him, she recalled how she had a sleepless night when the usually quiet Dey walked up to her to compliment her for her story. "I was so elated to get a compliment from a veteran like him," she added.
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