by Jigna Vora
‘I am here for Abu Jindal,’ he said. ‘Don’t be scared. Your relatives are waiting outside.’ Abu Jindal was an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai Attacks.
I heaved a sigh of relief. When I finally walked out, I turned around to look at the tall iron gates. I swore to myself that I’d do everything possible to not enter Laal Gate again. I would never visit Byculla again! Strangely, there was not one media personnel present to watch me walk out. But my entire family had turned up in two cars. We sped home as fast as we could. When I reached my building, I looked up at the window of my house and shouted for Leo. The lazy pug rushed down the stairs and began licking my face.
A day after I came home, my grandmother was taken ill. While she was resting in the living room, I noticed a steady stream of media personnel gathering below. But I chose to ignore it all and tried to catch a quick nap to ease a splitting headache. My neighbour rang the doorbell urgently. When my grandmother opened the door, the neighbour was gasping for breath. ‘The police are here again,’ she said.
Soon, a female ACP and the senior police inspector of Pant Nagar police station were outside my door and asking for me. I woke up from the commotion and walked out of my bedroom, trembling at the sight of the police. Were they here to arrest me again? Had my bail been cancelled so soon? What would they accuse me of this time? But the officers seemed concerned about me and asked about my health. My landline rang at that precise moment. It was Jayesh, and he sounded worried.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asked.
‘The police are at my door again,’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Your investigating officer, Mahale, called me to check on rumours that you had committed suicide.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, and apparently there was also a rumour that your body had been taken to Rajawadi Hospital.’
‘That explains the cops and the media.’
‘I’ll inform Mahale that you are safe,’ he said and hung up.
I spoke to the ACP. They confirmed that such news was doing the rounds and they were only there to check. I thanked them for their concern and went back to sleep.
A national daily published a report stating that I was suffering from depression. Post-bail, I was under court orders not to talk to the media. It was the best thing to happen to me. Newspapers, magazines, television channels had blatantly announced that if convicted, I was likely to receive a death sentence. I wondered if the media would ever stop maligning me.
23
RETURN OF RAJAN
After being on the run for twenty-seven years, Rajendra Sadashiv Nikhalje, alias Chhota Rajan, was handcuffed in Bali, Indonesia’s picturesque holiday island, on 25 October 2015. His arrest and the deportation that followed was covered in great detail and followed by most people in India. It was a significant development for some people, especially in India’s financial capital Mumbai, where the self-proclaimed Hindu don had run havoc in the 1980s. Even after he fled the city in 1988, the don had continued to have a hold. From extortion and smuggling to drug trafficking and assault, the mobster’s men ensured that his terror spread. The don had been named in the murders of more than seventeen people. One of them was J. Dey.
Born and brought up in Tilak Nagar in Chembur, Chhota Rajan started out selling tickets in black at a cinema hall in his locality. From being a petty thief, he graduated to serious crime after joining the gang of Rajan Nair, aka Bada Rajan. After Bada Rajan’s murder, Chhota Rajan took over the leadership and also the moniker. Rajan became a much-dreaded name after he started working for gangster Dawood Ibrahim. But their association turned sour soon after the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai. The split was followed by the biggest gang rivalry that the city had ever seen. From gang wars to murders and police-led encounters caused by tip-offs about rival gang members, the ugly bloodbath continued for a very long time.
*
I was in a vaastu assignment in Navi Mumbai when I saw a Times of India news alert on my phone: ‘Chhota Rajan Detained in Bali.’
The news flash distracted me completely from the task at hand. I called Jayesh. He was completely oblivious to the development.
‘The television people show such news every day,’ he said. ‘Most are rumours.’
Momentarily, Jayesh seemed to be right because there were updated news alerts that said the man detained in Bali could be Cyanide Mohan, the serial killer who had murdered twenty-three women. But then the Bengaluru Police soon rubbished the reports stating that Cyanide Mohan was very much in their custody.
Subsequently, it was confirmed that the man who had been arrested was indeed Chhota Rajan. He was travelling under the identity of Mohan Kumar when was apprehended at the Indonesian airport after he arrived from Australia.
India’s celebration of nabbing a notorious gangster felt like a stab wound in my stomach. The first and foremost thought in my mind was that the trial would now be delayed. Then I wondered what Chhota Rajan would say when he would be quizzed in the J. Dey murder case. There was no denying that whatever Chhota Rajan said would be treated as gospel truth. When he said Jigna had sent an email to him, everyone considered it true. When he said Jigna instigated him, everyone accepted it too. I was not prepared for another twist. I wanted all this to end.
*
On 6 November 2015, Chhota Rajan was brought to Delhi in an Indian Air Force Gulfstream-III aircraft. It was the first time that Chhota Rajan would be tried in any case. I was closely following the news developments. Unable to quell the storm within me, I would call Jayesh each time an uneasy, curious question crossed my mind. At times, he would calm me down and answer me, but there were also moments when he would get irritated.
The media was reporting on the Chhota Rajan case every day. There were speculations and theories around how the elusive don could have been caught so easily. There were reports on how the Arthur Road Jail was being prepared to house him. But the Maharashtra government came up with a surprising twist. They decided to hand over all his cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s premier investigating agency. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had called for a high-level meeting with the top cops and it was followed by the announcement:
India is a signatory to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime which mandates international co-operation on transnational organized crime, and Chhota Rajan was arrested under this convention. The CBI is the nodal agency for India under this convention, and hence the government has decided to transfer all cases in Mumbai and Maharashtra to the CBI. Once it has been decided to hand over all cases to the CBI, it is the CBI chief’s decision whether to keep him in Delhi or bring him to Mumbai . . .
The Hindu had reported, adding that Mumbai Police had compiled a dossier of over seventy cases, including twenty under the MCOCA.
Chhota Rajan was eventually put into a high-security cell at the Tihar jail. The transfer of cases to CBI triggered a new round of debate by the political parties.
‘Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had time and again said that Rajan will be brought to Maharashtra and even allotted a block in Arthur Road Jail (in Mumbai) to lodge him. It seems the CM was making all these statements and taking decisions without consulting the Centre,’ a senior Congress leader was quoted in the Indian Express. ‘This means there is a complete lack of coordination between the Centre and the state government, though BJP is in power in both places. This is most unfortunate’, he added.
With news of the CBI’s involvement, my brain went off on another tangent. Would the CBI now arrest me? Would they file a new charge sheet against me? Would I be sent to Byculla Jail? Or some other jail? I called Jayesh with my new set of questions.
‘It is obvious that the CBI will question you. But there will be no arrest,’ Jayesh told me, unhappy at having to answer more of my queries. ‘We will face whatever comes our way,’ he said.
I didn’t have the courage to tell him that I was not prepared. What if I had to go back to prison? How could I ever be prepared to fa
ce that?
24
THE TRIAL
Life after bail was pleasant. Amidst all that I was forced to go through, I kept a positive attitude by counting my blessings. The evidence against me was weak. But the wheels of justice turn too slowly in our country. I had no clue when my innocence would be proved, and could only find solace in the conditional bail that had been granted to me. The court had ordered me not to travel out of Mumbai. On the first and third Monday of every month, I had to visit the Unit One office at the Crime Branch and mark my presence. Failure to comply with these two conditions would lead to the cancellation of my bail. On my first visit to the Crime Branch after bail to mark my attendance, the officers were professionally polite in their dealings with me. I took that as a positive sign.
I had made many mannats in jail to visit temples and other religious places once the bail was through. But I was legally confined to the jurisdiction of Mumbai, and not even allowed to go to Thane or Vashi. While in jail, I had vowed to visit a religious place called Titwala in Thane. Jayesh filed an application in court for this, and it was surprisingly approved. Another application for visiting Rajasthan was also approved, but I had to submit the itinerary, my tickets, proof of hotel bookings and contact details before I was allowed to travel. My court hearings were scheduled once in fifteen days. I would rarely take an exemption from attending a hearing.
In March 2013, I filed an application seeking discharge from the case. The lack of evidence against me was clear, and I saw no reason to face a lengthy trial. But the application was rejected by Judge A.S. Pansare. The entire procedure took time because forensic reports of my phone and laptop were pending, and the official response from Google on my email activity was also awaited. But the main criteria for rejection was that two witnesses had given statements against me, and more light could be shed on this aspect only when the trial began.
The first witness had claimed that J. Dey had shown him an SMS that I had allegedly sent and which reportedly said in Marathi: Tu swatala shana samajhto kaay? The person who sent it to J. Dey was asking if he thought he was too clever in a derogatory manner. The SMS had not been retrieved in the forensic analysis. Only a CDR entry had shown up for an SMS I had sent to J. Dey in April 2010, more than a year before J. Dey was killed. The SMS for which the CDR was available had been sent in the presence of Hussain Zaidi, and was about a completely different topic related to a crime story.
The second witness had claimed that Chhota Rajan had told him that I had sent J. Dey’s bike number, photo and office address to Chhota Rajan. My lawyer argued there was no evidence to support this theory, but the judge wanted to delve deeper into the testimonies of these witnesses, which was only possible during the trial. The rejection meant that I had to face a trial, but was in no way a reflection of my guilt in the case. I discussed with Jayesh about going to the high court for appeal, but Jayesh felt it was better to face the trial rather than risk a setback in the high court. A high court application meant spending more money to engage appropriate lawyers. ‘Okay,’ I told Jayesh. ‘Let’s face the trial.’
For each court hearing, I had to stand with the ten other accused, which included the dreaded shooter Satish Kalia. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life to be lined up like that, and I had to go through it at every hearing. Everyone in the sessions court knew me well as a journalist. But now, they look at me pitifully or with scorn. The fifth floor of the sessions court was designated for only MCOCA cases. Hard-core criminals would swagger down the corridors without a hint of fear in their eyes, while I would shiver as I made my way to the courtroom. My manner of dressing also changed, and I would cover myself from top to bottom, and wear a dupatta to all court hearings.
In 2013, an accused in the Aurangabad arms haul case escaped from the sessions court premises. He was also being tried by Judge A.S. Pansare. After this incident, Judge Pansare moved his cases to the high-security courtroom constructed in Arthur Road Jail. It was the same jail where the 1993 bomb blasts case was heard, where I had covered all the proceedings as a journalist. My thoughts strayed to my interactions with Sanjay Dutt. I wondered what he would be thinking about me now.
During those days, my entry to these premises was always graceful and respectful. The staff at Arthur Road Jail knew me. Now, I had to bend my head down and avoid eye contact as I passed them. To top it all, my case was to be heard in the same room where Mumbai attacks terrorist Ajmal Kasab’s trial was held. The courtroom had been constructed as per international standards because the case of the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008 was covered by reporters from across the globe. The fresh coat of paint and split air conditioners did not give me any comfort. My stomach hurt when I thought how a dreaded terrorist who had killed so many innocent people had sat in this very room, where I was sitting now.
Between 2013 and 2015, the date for the next hearing kept being delayed. Earlier, I would use a radio taxi to get to court, but my finances had taken a hit in the past few years. I got a second-class local train pass to travel to court and thus save money. Now my applications for travel outside the city were mostly allowed by the court. My family members planned another trip to Nepal, to visit the famous temple of Pashupatinath on the banks of the River Bagmati in Nepal. More or less, it was the same group with whom I had visited Sikkim in June 2011, when J. Dey was shot dead. But this time, the judge refused my application. He could not allow me to visit Nepal, or Dubai for that matter, since I was an accused in a case of organized crime, and the underworld had presence in such locations. I pleaded that my tickets were already booked. The judge asked why I had booked the tickets. How was I supposed to explain that my previous trips were approved only after I provided proof of my itinerary? I dropped out of the trip to Nepal, promising myself a visit to Pashupatinath later.
On 8 June 2015, charges were framed in the J. Dey murder case. All the accused were lined up and the charges were read to them. I, Accused No. 11, was asked about my stand on charges that I had instigated Chhota Rajan to murder J. Dey, and that I had supplied the underworld don with J. Dey’s details that had helped him execute the crime. I firmly pleaded not guilty. That afternoon, I came back home and dwelled on what lay ahead. Now that the charges had been framed, a day-to-day trial was inevitable.
On 9 June 2015, I was sipping a cup of tea in my living room and skimming through the newspapers, which were full of reports that charges had been framed against Jigna Vora. I explained to my grandfather how the case would now proceed. He was a source of eternal strength for me. Around 10.30 a.m., my mother called on my cellphone from the landline in her room. Her health had deteriorated over the past few months. Her diabetes had worsened. She would constantly cough, and the doctors suspected it was tuberculosis. We had conducted some medical tests, but the reports were still awaited. In a month, her weight had dropped from 100 kg to 50 kg. The weakness had made her bedridden, and she needed a bedpan on most days.
When I went into her room, she appeared to be in great distress. She asked me to take her to the toilet. I led her inside, seated her and stood outside the ajar door. Even from inside the toilet, she was calling out my name continuously. I had constantly been taking care of her needs through her ailments. My grandfather could obviously not help her with going to the washroom, changing her clothes, or bathing her. So, I had stepped in. But on that day, as she kept calling me continuously while inside the toilet, I lost a bit of my patience and replied to her in an irritated tone. I craved for a breather from the constant pressure of caretaking. Anyone who has ever taken care of an old, ailing person will understand how stressful it can get. I had my own demons to fight: a murder charge, a lost career, no bank balance and dwindling savings. All of this may not justify my snapping at her, but I was fighting hard to keep my sanity through what I was dealing with.
A deep breath calmed me down. I helped my mother out of the toilet and put her back to bed. Then I went back to the living room. The tea had gone cold. So, I made some more tea and se
rved a cup to my mother too, who thanked me for the warm drink. She also read the newspaper. Around noon, she called me again. Every bone in her fragile body was now trembling. She complained of severe chest pain.
She coughed loudly and struggled to catch her breath. ‘Take me to hospital.’
For so long, I had been trying to convince her to get admitted to a hospital. She had stubbornly refused. She was adamant on paying her own medical expenses, which I had explained to her was not possible as she had spent most of her life as a housewife. Her counter to that explanation was to sell all her jewellery to pay her hospital bills. Earlier, when I had had a serious conversation about this, she had flatly refused any treatment in a hospital. She had probably lost the will to live over the last few months. She was depressed and would pop nearly fifty pills a day for her various ailments. But now was not the moment for this argument. She was in tremendous pain.
I began to rub her chest and called up our family doctor. He arrived in fifteen minutes and examined my mother. He made no serious observation, but gave her an injection and asked me to take her to the hospital. I looked at my mother. Her eyes were wide open with the realization of how much her condition had worsened. I called up a friend to help me. Then, I called an ambulance, which arrived in about thirty minutes. The paramedics pulled my mother on to a stretcher and led us down the building. My mother was awake and spoke to me as we climbed down the stairs.
‘Will I survive?’
‘You’ll be fine, Maa,’ I said. ‘We’ll get your medical check-ups done. You’ll be back home in three days.’
I sat in the back of the ambulance with my mom. My friend sat in front with the driver. Ashirwad Heart Hospital was hardly five minutes away from my home. As I entered the hospital, I looked back and saw my mother being carried on the stretcher. She was looking right at me. Eyes open wide, lips pursed crookedly. Something was terribly wrong. ‘Maa . . .’ I said softly and cried. A doctor rushed over, and my mother was taken to the emergency room. Around 1.20 p.m., they tried to resuscitate her and put her on a ventilator. By 1.45 p.m., I had returned home to tell my grandfather that my mother was no more. By 2.30 p.m., her body was back home. Her death had happened in a matter of hours. It was all too quick. I arranged for her final rites and stayed at home for fifteen days. To this day, I choke to tears thinking that I spoke harshly to my mother on the last day of her life.