Take Two

We Will Never Know

Madhavankutty Pillai | 30 Jun, 2011

…who really had J Dey killed. Each new story about him turns him more and more unreal

Reading what transpires for news on the J Dey murder case reminded me of a line in a talk by Arundhati Roy a year ago. It was at the Mumbai Patrakar Sangh near CST station. The day was hot and humid; the hall was hotter, and, if the word exists, humider. Unending rivulets of sweat streamed down her face as she spoke about what she always speaks. And at one point, alluding to an attack by Maoists that led to the killing of many a CRPF personnel, said almost as an aside and a given, and with mild puzzlement that anyone should think otherwise: we’ll really never know the truth.

Soon after his murder, Dey became a mythical journalist, who, realising the danger he was operating under, took extreme steps to protect himself like mismatching numbers on his phone and changing his route; almost as if to say that this was what had kept him alive for so long. During the press conference after they caught Dey’s ‘killers’, the police refused to reveal the motive. The police are shrewder than journalists think. To gently break the idea that Dey had criminal links to a hostile media, there is no better way to go about it. Leave a hole and let fertile imaginations fill it. Open the doorway to the world of ‘sources say’ and the earth-shattering ‘reliable sources say’.

Since then, there have been stories about Dey going to the Philippines to meet Chhota Rajan, to the UK to meet Iqbal Mirchi. Dey’s Philippines tour was a junket by their country’s tourism body and anyone who has done a junket—essentially a hurried hustling from one place to another like an organised tour—will tell you that it is hard to meet an underworld don inbetween. But he might have. We will never know. ‘Sources’ say Indian Mujahideen (IM) killed Dey. That is also possible. The IM is a benevolent organisation with a 24/7 helpline. When there is public anger over a crime and the police are undecided on who to pin it on, IM decides to lend a helping hand by owning up. They made a call during 26/11 too.

In the next few days, there will be more news about Dey’s involvement with the underworld. Then, when the ground has been prepared, the police will provide their own motive. Don’t believe it. Don’t disbelieve it either. It could be true. It could not be true. We will never know.