by Jigna Vora
Another story that I cannot forget and will probably haunt me for ever is of Chhota Rajan’s wife, Sujata Nikhalje. In December 2005, Sujata was arrested for extortion threats against a builder under the dreaded MCOCA. It was my first underworld story, and revealed the transcript of a conversation between Chhota Rajan and his wife where the don was missing his youngest daughter.
Once, my colleague Yogesh Sadhwani called early morning to give me a tip. A taxi driver had filed a complaint at Shivaji Park police station that three suspicious people, including a woman, had booked his taxi and conducted a recce of prominent spots like Haji Ali, Nariman Point and Shivaji Park. From their whispers, he feared that they were planning a terrorist attack. Now, the police were patrolling these areas day and night to prevent any untoward incident.
‘See if you can find anything more,’ Yogesh said and hung up.
I got in touch with a trusted source who confirmed that the news was true. My source called me to Haji Ali if I wanted more details. The source had sketches of the three suspected terrorists that the police had come up with based on the taxi driver’s descriptions. The person requested that I not quote him in the story. I agreed and switched on the Bluetooth on my Nokia phone to exchange the sketches, with the waves lashing behind us. Next morning, I walked all the way to Ghatkopar railway station to check the first print of my newspaper at 4 a.m. The sketches were on the front page.
K.L. Prasad, then joint commissioner, law and order, flew into a rage. He had reportedly dressed down his boys, who he claimed had betrayed him and caused a security threat. The police called a press conference and referred to my story, which was then used by every television channel and newspaper in the city. I did not attend the press conference because I was worried. Even my source had no idea that the photographs would create such a storm.
I also distinctly remember reporting on the serial killer whom everyone was calling Beer Man. He left bottles of beer next to dead bodies after murdering them on the streets as his ‘signature’. During that time, it happened that one night Meenal, our editor, was going hammer and tongs at all of us because there was no page-one story for the next morning’s edition. I hadn’t told her that I had been following up on a lead all day, because I was unsure if it would materialize. Unit One of the Crime Branch had conducted a kind of psychoanalysis and predicted the area in which the Beer Man would strike next. Around 9.30 p.m., my source called to inform that he was near the TOI building. I rushed downstairs to meet him, and he handed over the report that the police had come up with. There was no photograph to accompany this story, so one of our visual designers produced a well-drawn map. The story made it to the front page. Over the next few days, the Beer Man struck where the police had predicted.
I had become a regular page-one reporter despite covering the court beat. I must have delivered more than forty big stories in a year. From Abu Salem’s biryani feast in jail to Pramod Mahajan’s murder, a female judge’s request to get Z-category security to inspect the Sara Sahara premises and the likely deportation of twelve criminals associated with Dawood and Chhota Shakeel, I worked hard to get big stories.
But when the annual appraisal came, I got a monthly increment of merely Rs 2,000. So I put in my papers. Meenal offered me a higher designation, but she was bound by the corporate slabs when it came to the monetary aspect.
I had an offer from the Press Trust of India, the country’s largest news agency, which I brazenly used to bargain for a better offer from Mid-Day.
Meenal dissuaded me from joining Mid-Day. ‘You’ll never get the limelight that you’re getting here,’ she said. Mid-Day had offered me the position of a senior correspondent at a salary of Rs 35,000. How could I say no? And as luck would have it, I had a lead to a big story about encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma. I decided to keep the story in my bank and use it at the start of my stint with Mid-Day.
8
USHA MAA
From the corner of my eye, I saw Usha Maa, the warden, drying her waist-length hair. This plump and fair woman in her mid-fifties was a native of Uttar Pradesh. She was the only convict in Byculla Jail. All others were undertrials. She had draped the thin, yellow saree provided by the jail authorities quite low down on her waist. Her white blouse fit tightly over her arms. She must have been quite beautiful in her prime. She noticed I was looking, and started telling me how the hair was falling because of the jail water. I told her I was losing a lot of hair too.
‘Get two bottles of Sesa Oil,’ she said. ‘That’ll help.’
‘Why two?’ I asked.
‘One for you,’ she said. ‘And one for me.’
I had no intention of getting into her bad books by not agreeing to her demand for a bottle of oil. A few days later, my cousin brought two bottles of Sesa Oil during the visiting hour. Usha Maa looked visibly happy. The oil did help stem my hairfall a bit too.
‘Why were you arrested?’ I asked Usha Maa.
She responded with a bizarre theory. Apparently, she lived in Juhu and was a regular visitor to the temple that was patronized by music baron Gulshan Kumar. She claimed to be a witness of Gulshan Kumar’s murder near the temple and said she could identify the killers, who were allegedly Abu Salem’s men. She said her husband worked for a rival gang and was murdered in a separate incident, but the police had implicated her in her husband’s murder case due to his inter-gang rivalry with Salem’s gang. None of it made sense. It sounded like a made-up story, but she said it all in such a convincing manner that it made me wonder if there was any truth to it.
Paromita had a different take on Usha Maa’s case. According to her version, Usha Maa’s husband owned a dairy farm near Jogeshwari. The man had happened to catch his wife with her lover in the haystacks of the cowshed. The husband was then found murdered, and this had led to Usha Maa’s arrest and conviction.
As the warden, Usha Maa would order all inmates to clean the barracks, the toilet and the bathrooms on Thursdays to impress the superintendent the next day. Her voice could shake the walls of the jail. Influential prisoners like Jaya Chheda were exempt from such work. All inmates had to purchase one sachet of Surf washing powder with their own money for the cleaning. This was an unwritten rule. Due to the fascination that most of the prisoners had with me, I had acquired a celebrity-like status. So, I was never pushed for this task, but I wanted to kill time so badly that I happily volunteered for it every week. The two hours of washing and cleaning would keep me busy. The inmates would also have a little bit of fun by throwing bubbles of soap at each other and slipping on the surfaces. We would all be laughing until Usha Maa’s thunderous voice would boom across the walls of the jail.
‘Ae randis!’ she would scream. ‘Get back to work!’
I wonder if Usha Maa knew anybody’s name inside the jail because she addressed everybody with different words that ended up translating into ‘prostitute’. The first time she had seen me, she had used the same phrase for me. But after she came to know more about me, her salutations changed. Once, I asked her why she addressed every woman that way. She rationalized that she’d been put through the same thing, and she was only passing it on as a tradition. Though I never agreed with her use of foul language, I could understand her frustration. More than seventeen years in prison could turn a woman’s heart into stone.
Byculla wasn’t even a women’s prison back when Usha Maa was arrested. She was first sent to Arthur Road Jail and subsequently to other jails in the state over the seventeen years of her incarceration. A life sentence is generally fourteen years in prison, but even after completing this term, the convict’s release papers are sent to various departments in the government, which can easily add a few more years to the process if the convict does not have the legal and family support to keep the files moving. Usha Maa’s in-laws had already turned against her due to the nature of the case. She had two sons who rarely visited her. In fact, I never saw anyone come to meet her in the nine months I spent in jail. But Usha Maa was still hopeful of securing
a release, like so many others. Jaya Chheda also raised Usha Maa’s hopes by promising her legal and financial support. In her life as a prisoner, Usha Maa had seen so many prisoners secure bail, or be released, but she was still languishing. She would thus vent her frustration on the inmates.
Usha Maa was the link between the authorities and the inmates. I had more easy access to the authorities on account of my profession and education, but those lower down the order—beggars, robbers, drug peddlers, etc.—did not have this privilege. The solutions to their problems were determined by their personal equations with Usha Maa, and so they obeyed every command she issued.
Usha Maa also supervised the distribution of food. Fatima and other inmates would do the actual distribution. People would line up on the porch with aluminium plates in their hands and collect their food under her watchful eyes.
Anyone who helped Usha Maa with money or brought snacks for her from the canteen was a ‘good woman’ in her books, and Usha Maa praised them. I did not see anyone in Usha Maa’s family ever send her a money order. The better-off inmates like Sujata Nikhalje or Jaya Chheda would buy biscuits and other items for Usha Maa and then extract favours in return. Usha Maa would also get other streetwise inmates like Fatima to smuggle packets of Manikchand gutkha into jail. Once, Usha Maa asked me to get a packet of henna to dye her hair on the way back from court. I was apprehensive because the constables wouldn’t allow such items inside the jail.
‘Don’t worry,’ Usha Maa said. ‘You’ll face no trouble getting it inside. I will talk to our randi constables,’ said Usha Maa.
Usha Maa would regale others with her stories when she was in the mood for a conversation. In one such incident, a few years ago, a prostitute was arrested by the police and brought to Byculla Jail. Overnight, news of the prostitute’s beauty spread like a wildfire. Next morning, Usha Maa visited Barrack No. 1 to take a look at the new prisoner. She was surprised to find that the prostitute was a eunuch wearing a yellow-coloured micro-mini! All the women were flustered and worried about their privacy because the new inmate was not the same gender as they were. Usha Maa raised this concern with the superintendent, but there was no immediate clarity in the manuals or procedures for handling such instances. Usha Maa suggested that the new inmate be kept in solitary confinement, and the superintendent agreed. Usha Maa then imitated the eunuch’s gait and walked around the barrack. She exaggerated the walk to make all of us laugh. Moments like these made me forget my incarceration, even if for a split second.
Usha Maa also remembered interacting with Yakub Memon’s wife, who, according to her, was a beautiful woman who spent all her time praying. She was full of such stories, and would spend whole afternoons regaling us with them sometimes. Having spent twelve years in Yerwada Jail, she had also gained a good understanding of the law. She would often speak to me in Jaya Chheda’s absence. She was close to Jaya Chheda, who had warned her not to speak to me. Usha Maa managed a nice balancing act when it came to me, though she was harsh on the other inmates. Her best advice for me was to keep my focus on prayers and God, and stay out of the murky jail politics.
9
MEETING A STALWART: JYOTIRMOY DEY
I was utterly confident that the lead I had on Pradeep Sharma was a page-one story. My sources had confirmed that Sharma was under the scanner for his role in the Lakhan Bhaiya encounter. Ramnarayan Gupta, alias Lakhan Bhaiya, was eliminated by Sharma’s team in an allegedly fake encounter in 2006 that had taken place at the Nana Nani Park in Versova. This park was supposed to be a place for senior citizens to enjoy a breath of fresh air and the shoot-out had disrupted its serenity. The police commissioner’s office at Crawford Market was known as the ‘Compound’ in crime-reporting circles, and I often visited high-ranking officers there. I asked one of the very senior, decorated officers for a quote on my lead, but he merely raised an eyebrow in surprise.
‘Who told you about this?’ he asked.
‘My sources from the court,’ I said. ‘Is the news true?’
He nodded. ‘The case is at an early stage. Wait for the right time to break it.’
I decided to hold on to Pradeep Sharma’s story for the moment. Fifteen days later, I joined Mid-Day with high aspirations. Mumbai Mirror was giving Mid-Day a run for its money. I was riding a wave of confidence over my performance at Mumbai Mirror, where I had contributed a minimum of two front-page stories every week. Meenal, who was known to be a strict taskmaster, did play a role is pushing all the reporters, including me, to dig out the best stories. Mid-Day, I thought, would be a cakewalk because according to industry sources, the work pressure was lesser than that at Mumbai Mirror and there was no push to deliver page-one scoops.
I began working on a story related to Iqbal Kaskar, who was threatening the residents of a building in his area to empty the premises. Since this story had an underworld link, it again required me to visit the Compound and meet the same high-ranking officer whom I was pursuing for the Pradeep Sharma story. My frequency of visiting the Compound increased. Deepak Lokhande, the bureau chief at Mid-Day and my boss, felt that the Iqbal Kaskar story could go into the Sunday edition, which was managed by a separate Sunday team. I filed the Kaskar story, thinking that his association with Dawood Ibrahim would propel the story to page one. But I was deflated to find that the story was published as a feature in the middle pages. On inquiring around the office, I was told that ‘story mein masala nahi tha’ (there was no spice in the story). Further digging revealed that the story had not pleased the resident editor, Shishir Joshi.
Mid-Day had a culture of multiple bosses. There was no pressure in the newsroom. At Mumbai Mirror, Meenal would fling papers in the air and shake up the entire office at 10 p.m. if page one wasn’t up to the mark. That kind of pressure often left even seasoned reporters in tears. At first, I enjoyed the low amount of stress at Mid-Day, but as time passed, it put me in an unwanted comfort zone. I began missing the vibe of Mumbai Mirror.
I would file exclusive stories every day, but Deepak would say they were not ‘Mid-Day-type’. But there was no guidance or lead from the Mid-Day editors on what exactly they wanted in the paper. There was no push from Deepak. We had to list our stories weekly, on Monday mornings. Each reporter updated Deepak on the stories they would chase over the next six days. At Mumbai Mirror, we would list stories every day. And there was always a risk of the story being rejected by Meenal at the last moment. By the time the edit meeting at Mumbai Mirror concluded around 6 p.m., only three to four stories remained on the list while the others would be struck off. Mid-Day, on the other hand, used whatever the reporter had to offer. At times, I would internally question their editorial decision on front-page stories. I had started to get an inkling that my stories were not being considered on the front-page spot deliberately.
My equation with Prasad Patil at Mid-Day was very cold. He had an experience in court reporting, and I believed that he looked at me as competition. At times, I felt he was responsible for killing my stories. The mere sight of him would make me turn red in anger. During that time, a new reporter with no earlier experience was assigned to cover the high court. I was covering the sessions court as a special correspondent. The new reporter’s stories regularly made it to page one, while exclusive and worthy stories filed by me were being dumped inside. Mentally, I blamed it all on Prasad Patil.
Apart from the lack of inspiration, I also disliked some of the people at Mid-Day. A senior editor sat in a glass cabin right across my desk. He would often adjust his seat in a manner that allowed him to stare at me. Often, he messaged about how well I was dressed, or how attractive my smile was. His attention made me very uncomfortable.
After a couple of uneventful weeks at Mid-Day, I was rostered into the night shift, which began late at night and ended at 7.30 a.m. One morning, I was packing up to leave for home when I saw a man in his forties speaking on the landline phone in the cubicle opposite me. It was unusual for a print reporter to show up so early in the morning. I walked up t
o a female colleague in the features team who was working the same shift. As she stayed in Mulund, we would travel together. I asked her about the person whispering on the phone so secretively.
‘You don’t know him?’ she said, aghast. ‘He is J. Dey.’
‘Which department?’ I asked.
‘He is the investigations editor.’
I recalled hearing J. Dey’s name crop up in a conversation with Unnikrishnan at Mumbai Mirror. While I was working there, Unni was reading the Hindustan Times in the corridor with another colleague. They were speaking in Malayalam and happened to mention my name. I had asked Unni what the conversation was about. He mentioned appreciatively that my story had been followed by J. Dey, who was then a crime reporter with HT. The story was related to RDX supplies for the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts. But I hadn’t noticed J. Dey’s stories on the front page of Mid-Day. I blamed it on my lack of interest in reading the newspaper as none of my stories were being taken seriously. While I was with Mumbai Mirror, I would grab a copy first thing in the morning to check my stories. I would look at the layout, the edit, the photographs, and feel my heart swell with pride. My move to Mid-Day now felt like career suicide.
A few days later, in the complex of the Mid-Day office, I saw J. Dey leaning against a car and smoking with Iqbal Mamdani, who was a reporter with India TV. Iqbal knew me well and called me over. He asked questions about life at Mid-Day, to which I only had half-hearted responses. He expressed surprise that my stories were not showing up on the front page any more, and that made me all the more worried. Iqbal did not introduce me to J. Dey and neither did J. Dey speak to me on his own. Throughout my journalistic career, I had never been introduced to J. Dey, despite him being a renowned crime reporter. Our interactions were simply limited to acknowledging each other’s presence with glances and nothing more.