The Murky World of Crime Reporting

On his chosen turf, J Dey’s reputation of integrity would have been enough to make him a marked man

I met J Dey in the year 2000 when I joined The Indian Express. Through work we became friends and kept in touch even after we moved to other jobs. Not everyone became his friend; he chose them carefully. But once you belonged to that circle, he was committed to you.

He was tall. At 6 ft 3 inch, he dwarfed most and always got a second glance when he walked in. For someone that big, he was very light on his feet. He was as secretive as the underworld he reported on and never let on much at office meetings. I remember him saying once, a little reluctantly, that he was afraid it could be leaked to willing ears.

Dey kept to himself and even getting a smile out of him was difficult. At the Express office, we rarely heard his voice. He was never a part of the canteen crowd or into office politics. You always found him squinting at the computer screen. He liked to keep people guessing about himself. When you asked him details about his home state, he would stare intensely at the questioner and then say either Assam or West Bengal. Every day, whether it was sunny or rainy, he rode down to a gym close to the office and diligently did his workout.

His tales about the underworld kept him inside the cabins of bosses for the better part of every evening, leaving junior crime reporters fuming. But then, if you followed crime as passionately as he did, there was bound to be some heartburn. We started having a conversation many months after I had joined work. He was not married then and was extremely shy and wary of women. “You have a very good height,” was how conversation began. Ironically, this was he telling me. I am tall but not even close to his height. It was silly, but every time we met, I would stand next to him to see how I measured up.

Crime reporting is not easy, particularly so because there exists a formidable nexus among reporters, the police and the underworld. Dey was known to be clean, but the number of rotten apples in crime reporting by far exceeds the clean ones. I have covered crime and sources have told me that it is standard practice for the police to maintain secret dossiers on crime reporters. They do this because some crime reporters are fronts for the underworld. A few are blackmailers: “They threaten to defame a person identified by the criminal through a series of news reports. Out of fear, most people are willing to ‘settle’,” says a police source.

Senior crime reporters I know tell me that the beat has been overrun by elements only too willing to liaise with the underworld. Their biggest racket is mandawli  (to negotiate settlements between the underworld and their ‘prey’). Some crime reporters have their finger in the real estate pie too and operate as ‘collection agents’ for the underworld.

“It is a fine line between a source and a friend. When this line blurs, there is a problem. Yes, crime reporting is not what it used to be,” says a reporter of a well-known English daily not willing to be named. When the underworld is kept happy, they repay well. Some years ago, when the house of a crime reporter was robbed, he ensured that the theft was kept out of police records. Unofficially, a search was mounted for the criminals but the reporter didn’t pursue it. There was talk then of his lavish lifestyle, which could scarcely have been funded out of his salary.

On another occasion, a police party conducted an official raid at the house of a well-known crime reporter, who had authored a couple of books, including one that was later made into a movie. Angry at the police action, members of the Press met the then home minister and demanded stringent action against the deputy commissioner of police, who had led the raid. The police stood its ground and maintained they had hard evidence of gang connections to back their action. It also transpired that the reporter had two wives.

There is a tale about another reporter who sought asylum with Dawood Ibrahim and stayed in Dubai for many years after a deal with a rival gangster went sour. There was a contract out for him. It was only on Dawood’s intervention that the other gangster called off the supari  (hit job).

When Maharashtra home minister RR Patil shut down Mumbai’s dance bars, there were loud protests from a certain section of crime reporters. A series of stories followed, lashing out at the government decision. It was only when an angry Patil declared that his department would make public a list of reporters who frequented these dance bars that the tirade stopped. One bar girl, Tarannum, who briefly became famous for having reportedly charmed Sri Lankan cricketer Muralitharan with her gyrations, was at the time accessible to only one crime reporter. It was later revealed that the said reporter was her ‘liaison agent’, who picked up contracts for private dance sessions on her behalf. The client list included highly placed policemen, affluent businessmen and Bollywood personalities, among others.

Another crime reporter, who works for a well-known newspaper, recently got into some trouble with the police over a house purchase. He got in touch with his underworld sources to “put pressure on the builder” to lower the price. It worked, and he will soon own a house with a fantastic view.

Ever wondered how Mumbai’s encounter specialists got their oversized reputations? Many crime reporters worked overtime to give these now-disgraced policemen the ‘right positioning’. Every encounter specialist had a team of crime reporters working overtime to ensure that every move of theirs got media play, each reporter trying to outdo the other. If news about Daya Nayak appeared one day, those in the Pradeep Sharma, Vijay Salaskar or other camps ensured that stories about their friends appeared in newspapers the next day. “The reporter-criminal-police nexus is a malaise. These reporters must be dealt with in a manner that serves as a deterrent for others,” says a former city police commissioner.

What happens in the garb of crime reporting is no secret in media circles, but it’s not talked about openly. Given his enviable reach, Dey had to know about it, but he chose to focus on doing his job. Silently. Relentlessly.

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