Journalist killing: Mediapersons hold rally; suspect’s sketch released

Mangalore Today News Network

Mumbai, June 13, 2011: Mediapersons today took out a procession here to condemn the brutal killing of senior journalist Jyotirmoy Dey and demanded CBI probe into the incident.

The journalists, belonging to both print and electronic media organisations and associations, gathered at Patrakar Sangh in south Mumbai and marched towards Mantralaya.

 

 

Assuring the agitating scribes at Mantralaya, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said, "The state government is sensitive to feelings of journalists and is doing whatever it can to bring the assailants to book." Chavan said he was personally monitoring the investigations. Dey was shot dead in suburban Powai on Saturday by unidentified assailants.

The newsmen, while demanding a CBI enquiry into the killing, also sought resignation of Home Minister R R Patil and Mumbai police commissioner Arup Patnaik.

Organisations, including the Press Club, Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, Mantralaya Ani Vidhimandal Vartahar Sangh, Mumbai Crime Reporters’ Association and TV Journalists’ Association, participated in the protest.

Earlier in the day, a delegation of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee met the chief minister at his official residence and appealed him to take urgent and appropriate steps to tackle the growing incidents of attacks on media persons in the state.

 

Suspect’s sketch released
The Mumbai Crime Branch on Monday released a sketch of a suspect in the murder case of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey. According to the Crime Branch the suspect is 20-25 years old with a medium built and 5.5 feet tall. He is of dark complexion.

Mumbai Crime Branch officials said that the sketch was prepared following the inputs of several eye witnesses. They said that the CCTV camera outside Dey’s house, which could have given vital clues, failed to capture the murder.

Dey, a senior crime reporter and editor of Special Investigations of Mumbai Mid Day was killed, was shot five times on Saturday outside his home, in broad daylight. His killers were reportedly four gunmen on two motorbikes.

Earlier on Monday Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had claimed that the leads in Dey’s murder case point towards the involvement of the oil mafia. Chavan met a delegation of Mumbai journalists and told them that Dey was on the verge of exposing the oil mafia.

Rejecting the demand for an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Chavan said that the state police should be given a chance to solve the murder case. Chavan also rejected the journalists’ demand for the resignation of Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil and Mumbai Police Commissioner.

The delegation conveyed to the Chief Minister that the state government should solve the case within two weeks or a bigger agitation would be launched.

Mumbai Police sources also claim to have got leads in the Dey murder case. Mumbai Crime Branch teams have been sent out of Mumbai to act on the leads.

Sources also say a number of people in Mumbai including underworld informants and local criminals are being questioned in the connection with Dey’s murder. Sources add a revolver could have been used to carry out the murder.

The police are also examining Dey’s call records, laptop and pen drives - looking at the stories he was investigating.

The last goodbye
As over 200 journalists and colleagues assembled to bid adieu to city’s most accomplished investigative journalist, even the most hardened crime reporters were moved to tears by J Dey’s sudden and brutal murder.

The notorious Mumbai rains did not stop over 200 people on a Sunday morning from thronging a certain grieving residence at Amrut Nagar in Ghatkopar, that of the mother of an extraordinary crime reporter J Dey, who was ruthlessly shot dead last Saturday afternoon by four bikers outside his Powai residence.

As it was, the misty wet morning failed to obscure the tears. Dey’s body was brought to Amrut Nagar at 9.15 am in an ambulance from the state-run JJ Hospital.

 

 

In a first-floor apartment house in Amrut Nagar, his mother was inconsolable as she laid her eyes upon her son.

Her agony permeated through to everyone present. Even the hardest crime journalists or the objective business reporters cried.
 
People who knew him, who loved him, worked with him colleagues and proteges, who looked up to him, and who read his stories, made it a point to mark their presence to see their beloved Dey embark on the journey after life. Every rickshaw driver in Ghatkopar knew where to take you the moment you asked for Amrut Nagar.

It is only a testimony to Dey’s charismatic appeal, personally and as a journalist, that  there was no dearth of teary-eyed palanquin bearers. Journalists across all media newspapers, television, magazines, websites and wires came forward.

Politicians were seen, most of them present in their personal capacity. Uniformed police officers and plainclothes cops were present, many who knew him personally, some on passing, but none remain untouched by the influence he had had upon them.

After the antim darshan that continued until 11.30 am, his body was taken to the crematorium, where his friend and student Nikhil Dixit performed the last rites. It was still raining. A few had umbrellas. Many didn’t, or couldn’t bother.

The crowd stood there, wordlessly mourning the loss of J Dey, as his byline introduced him, a name etched in countless memories, never to fade away.

Jyotirmoy Nirpendra Dey was killed by some cowards who do not want the truth to be revealed to the public. But the journalist fraternity present to pay homage to the man who dauntlessly and ceaselessly exposed and challenged crime have decided to protest the killing.

We have taken an oath to bring the murderers to book. At noon today, a gathering of various journalists will embark on a march from Press Club towards Mantralaya, to object to this gross attack on the freedom of the press and to demand the creation of a legislation to protect fearless journalists such as Dey.

Courtesy: Mid-Day / CNN-IBN