Behind Bars in Byculla
Page 18
A constable then made way for me. All my relatives hugged me. They were all crying. Using Jayesh’s phone, I called home and spoke to my son. He couldn’t stop crying. But I was delighted to hear his voice, to know that I would be around him for the foreseeable future at least. My relatives left soon for their respective homes. I drank a glass of water and went back to the courtroom. Only the friend who had accompanied me through the morning stayed back. Around 5.30 p.m., I exited from the back door with my face covered in the dupatta again. I refused to talk to the media. I heard a female reporter snigger, ‘She is still so arrogant.’ I ignored those words, got into Jayesh’s car and rolled up the black-tinted windows. Six photographers on bikes chased us till CST. I did not utter a single word throughout the journey. As the car sped along, I imagined shedding my past, bit by bit. Perhaps, somewhere during the journey, I had also lost the Jigna I knew.
Jayesh dropped me to Chembur, at my uncle’s place, as we suspected that the media would have camped near my house in Ghatkopar. I took a quick nap, and it was sound sleep for the first time in six-and-a-half years. At midnight, I came back home—to my son and my freedom.
EPILOGUE
The Mystery
The first charge sheet in the J. Dey murder case was filed in December 2011. According to this 3,000-page document, Chhota Rajan was irked by two scathing articles that J. Dey had written about him, and more so about the remarks that he was an ageing don. These articles were published on 29 May 2011 and 4 June 2011.
After Dey was shot dead on 11 June 2011, Chhota Rajan called up some crime reporters and news channels. He claimed that Dey had to be killed because he had turned a traitor by joining hands with Dawood. Rajan also spoke about Dey inviting him for a meeting in London. Dey’s visit to London was said to be a personal one and not a trip sanctioned by office. Rajan’s trusted sources in Dubai had warned him that a death trap had been laid for him, and Rajan had cancelled the meeting on the basis of his suspicion. He also claimed that Dey had invited him for a meeting in the Philippines. But this time, Rajan’s suspicion ticked him off and he made up his mind to eliminate this alleged threat to his life.
In all these theories, one thing continued to intrigue me. Satish Kalia, the sharpshooter who pulled the trigger on J. Dey, and his associates had procured the weapon from Deepak Sisodia in Nainital between 12 May and 15 May 2011. How could the articles written by Dey, which were published on 29 May 2011 and 4 June 2011, then have provoked Chhota Rajan to kill him? The only possible theory would be that Rajan had known about the Dey articles way in advance.
My only communication with Chhota Rajan was on 24 May 2011 for an official interview for a story that was published the next day in the Asian Age, where I worked then. This was much later than the weapon to kill J. Dey had been procured. I wondered, and I still do, about how and why my name appeared in this heinous plot at all. How had I instigated Chhota Rajan? And when exactly did I do that? I have never found an answer to this, nor did the investigators.
In 2016, the CBI filed a second charge sheet in the J. Dey murder case. Strangely, this charge sheet had no mention of the two articles that the Mumbai Police claimed had been the motive for the murder. CBI’s theory claimed that Chhota Rajan plotted the murder because Dey was writing a book on the underworld titled Chindi: Rags to Riches. The term chindi in the slang of Mumbai is a derogatory reference to something or someone of little consequence. The book apparently referred to the small beginnings of Chhota Rajan, when he had started selling movie tickets in black near Sahakar Cinema in Chembur. Reportedly, Chhota Rajan was seething at the way he was going to be portrayed in the book. Email exchanges between J. Dey and his book editor were made part of the CBI charge sheet. But J. Dey was a very private person. He was never outspoken, and pretty much kept his work and personal life a secret from anyone who did not need to know. How did Chhota Rajan then come to know about Dey’s book? There hasn’t been a satisfactory answer to this question.
Against me, the CBI relied on the statement of Aariz Chandra. In the judgment, the judge considered all theories and generally agreed to Chhota Rajan’s version of events. Chhota Rajan’s interviews played a key role as an extrajudicial confession. In recent times, the Supreme Court of India has ruled that an extrajudicial confession is a ‘weak piece of evidence’, but can be acted upon to convict a person if a court is satisfied that it is voluntary.
The judge observed that in no interview had Chhota Rajan claimed that I, Jigna Vora, Accused No. 11, had instigated him to murder J. Dey. In an interview to NDTV, Chhota Rajan had made no mention of my name. About ten days before my arrest, when Chhota Rajan spoke to Jitendra Dikshit, who was with Star News then, he did not mention me. When Chhota Rajan spoke to journalist Nikhil Dixit, who was Dey’s best friend, he kind of lamented about making a mistake by killing Dey, but I was not mentioned in the conversation. When Dey’s wife deposed in court, she spoke about some friction between her husband and an ACP of the Mumbai Police, but she did not talk about any history that existed between J. Dey and me. There was no proof of any email exchanges between Chhota Rajan and me. The mobile phones recovered from me did not have any incriminating evidence even after extensive forensic analysis. My name had only popped up in Aariz Chandra’s statement to the police.
I had written a story about Dey’s meeting with Dawood aide Iqbal Mirchi in London. The lead for this story had been provided by my sources in the Mumbai Police, who later claimed that I had tried to mislead their investigation by the article. The court, however, did not agree to this particular argument of the Mumbai Police.
The men who killed J. Dey were convicted. These included Satish Kalia, the dreaded sharpshooter, Anil Waghmode, who was riding the bike on that rainy day, Abhijit Shinde, Arun Dake, Sachin Gaikwad, Nilesh Shendge, Mangesh Agawane, and Deepak Sisodia, who supplied the gun. Vinod Chembur, who had allegedly identified the target to the shooters, was appended from the trial on account of his death. Chhota Rajan himself was convicted, and his interviews after the murder played a part in his conviction. Paulson Joseph, who was accused of providing SIM cards to the shooters, was acquitted. A certain Ravi Rateshwar, who was named a witness in the charge sheet filed by the Mumbai Police, was listed as an accused in the CBI charge sheet.
Rateshwar is currently based in Dubai and efforts are on to extradite him to India. Apparently, he is a close aide of Chhota Rajan. Another associate of Deepak Sisodia, Nancy Bisht, is still at large. Ravi Rateshwar and Nancy Bisht are the two wanted accused in this case till date.
The judgment spans over 600 pages. Three small paragraphs in those 600 are about me. ‘There is nothing in their evidence to suggest that the Accused No. 11 had instigated the Accused No. 12 (Rajan) to commit the murder of J. Dey or that she had any other role in this offence,’ the judgment stated.
Those three paragraphs restored the dignity that had been ripped away bit by bit, every day, for seven long years.
Will life be the same again? I can’t tell. Can I go back to being the star reporter that I was? No. All this for a weak, malicious allegation that could not be proven. As I look back at the case, I still wonder why J. Dey was really murdered. Perhaps that will for ever remain a mystery.
1 ‘10 Facts About the Malegaon Blasts’, Wire, 25 June 2015, https://thewire.in/law/10-facts-about-the-malegaon-blasts
2 Smruti Koppikar, ‘A Myth Blasted?’ in ‘Terror Probe Malegaon’, Outlook, 10 November 2008, pp. 30–31, https://books.google.co.in/books?id=PzEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=ats+arrests+pragya+thakur+malegaon+blast+in+2008&source=bl&ots=qh8QM3IOwO&sig=ACfU3U0E9TH8jjRHPSVkdb7LLvj-1i4PWA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjXhP6Yve3hAhUY2o8KHSG3BqU4RhDoATADegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=ats%20arrests%20pragya%20thakur%20malegaon%20blast%20in%202008&f=false
3 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/photo/mumbai-police-press-conference-on-j-dey-murder-365761-2011-06-27/3 NDTV, ‘Chhota Rajan Gang Had Journalist Dey Killed: Police’, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/chhota-rajan-gang-had-journalist-dey-killed-police-459579
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br /> Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I must thank my family members—my maternal uncle Ketan Sanghavi, maternal aunt Priti Sanghavi, Neela Bhuta, Jayesh Bhuta, and my uncle Rajesh Vora—for standing by me, rock solid during these seven years of ordeal. I really appreciate them for always being present at my court hearings while I was in custody and when I returned.
Special thanks goes to my cousin, Paresh Vora, for diligently bringing me home-cooked food for three months, prepared by Aruna bhabhi. Travelling to Byculla from Santa Cruz is never easy but he would come every day with the food. I thank all my near and dear ones who kept faith and believed in me. My grandparents, who were in their mid-eighties at that time, never questioned my innocence. I wish my mother and grandparents could have witnessed the fact that I have been proved innocent.
I am indebted to my son for not doubting me even once and grateful for understanding me in my fight for justice. It was equally tough for him to go through the humiliation.
I am thankful to Rajeev Sharma for being in my life when I was going through its worst and most difficult phase. Thanks, Rajeev, for truly loving and believing me.
I am grateful to my lawyer, Mr Prakash Shetty, for always having his ears open for me and believing in my side of the story. Thank you, sir, for giving me this second lease of life. Jayesh Vithlani for being a friend first, more than a lawyer. Thank you for patiently handling my frustration, tantrums, fears and tears right from the day of my arrest till acquittal and always being there for me.
I am grateful to my childhood friends Nilesh Vasi, Ramesh Chaudhry, Vivek Desai, and Sangeta Telekar, for always cheering me up and helping me rebuild my life. I am thankful to Rekha and Atul Parekh for supporting our family in this tough time.
I am also grateful to my police officer friends who stood beside me and prayed for me. I would also especially like to thank a police officer from Gujarat, whose absence was always present and whom my eyes would always hunt for during these seven years. I understand his dilemma but thanks for being present, albeit silently, during my struggle to prove my innocence.
Special thanks goes to Kashif Shaikh and Jyoti Shelar for putting my story into words and working so dedicatedly on this. I still remember the late-night conference calls from different corners of the city to discuss the book.
I want to thank Hussain Zaidi, my mentor, and my boss at that time, for believing in me and having my back all these years. This book couldn’t have been possible without him. Thank you, sir.
Lastly, sorry to everyone, particularly my family, who had to go through all the humiliation.
THE BEGINNING
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This collection published 2019
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This digital edition published in 2019.
e-ISBN: 978-9-353-05648-3
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