7 Chhota Rajan men held for Dey’s murder

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Satish Kalia (red T-shirt), accused of being the shoo-ter in the J. Dey killing, after being remanded to police custody

Sixteen days after the brutal murder of veteran crime reporter Jyotirmoy Dey, the Mumbai crime branch on Monday claimed to have finally cracked the case. Seven persons, who allegedly executed the killing at the behest of fugitive underworld don Chhota Rajan, have been arrested.

They were produced in the court on Monday, and were remanded to police custody till July 4.
The city police top brass, however, chose to remain tightlipped on the motive behind the contract killing, saying they had unverified information and wanted to review everything before revealing details.
They said the accused would be booked under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
The arrested accused have been identified as Rohee Thangappan Joseph alias Satish Kalia, 34, from Khar (East); Abhijit Kasharam Shinde, 28, and Nilesh Narayan Shendge alias Babloo, 34, from Sion; Arun Hanardan Dake, 27, and Sachin Suresh Gaikwad, 27, from Chembur; Anil Bhanudas Waghmade, 35, from Andheri (West) and Mangesh Damodar Agav-ane, 25, from Jogeshwari.
“Kalia, who is known to work for the Chhota Rajan gang, received a call from Rajan around 20 days before Dey’s murder. Rajan asked Kalia to collect a ‘supari’ of `2 lakhs from a person in Chembur and collect the weapon (a .32-bore US-made revolver with Czech bullets) from Nainital for ‘eliminating’ someone. On June 6, Rajan called up Kalia again and gave him the registration number of Dey’s motorcycle and his description, without revealing his name. Rajan also told Kalia that the target would be spotted near Peninsula Centre in Parel, where Dey worked, or in Powai’s Hiranandani area,” said joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy.
After performing a recce from June 6 to 8, the seven arrested accused tried to locate Dey on June 9 and 10, but could not spot him. Ultimately, on June 11, they were successful.
“The seven accused used three motorcycles and a Toyota Qualis for the operation. After shooting Dey, all of them met at Mangesh’s house in Jogeshwari as pre-decided. They informed Rajan that the job was done. However, later, they were startled to learn through television news channels reports that Dey was a senior journalist. Kalia then called up Rajan again and said that the entire police machinery was actively hunting for them, and that he should have told him about Dey’s
background. Rajan then offered him more money and asked them to flee the city,” Mr Roy said.
Accordingly, the accused collected `3 lakhs from a person in Nallasopara. While Sachin and Mangesh stayed back in Mumbai, the other five started on an all-India pilgrimage in the same car. “They first went to Pavagadh in Gujarat, then to Shirdi, Akalkot and Sholapur, where Nilesh left them as he had some relatives there. The other four went on to Bijapur, where Arun parted ways, saying he was homesick. Finally, the remaining three accused went on to Sangli, Bengaluru, Madurai and Rameshwaram,” Mr Roy said.
According to the crime branch chief, Kalia, Anil and Abhijit were picked up from Rameswaram, Nilesh from Sholapur, and Arun, Sachin and Mangesh from Dharavi in Mumbai.
When asked about the motive behind the murder, Mr Roy said: “We have some unverified information and I would not like speak about the motive at this stage. But once we verify our information we will definitely come out with the details. Now that we know who ordered the
killing, we will dig further into the personal email accounts of Dey and the stories he did and question the arrested accused on that basis.”