MUMBAI: The crime branch investigating journalist Jigna Vora’s role in the contract killing of senior scribe J Dey seized her laptop and cellphone from her house. Vora (38) employed with an English daily was arrested on Friday.
Sources said her laptop and cellphone have been sent to the state forensic laboratory (SFL) for analysis and recover data from the hardware. Technical experts are also gathering details of the emails sent from her office computer, sources added. Police said fugitive gangster Chhota Rajan ordered the killing.
“Though we have enough circumstantial evidence and Rajan told few witnesses that she instigated the killing, we are collecting technical evidence to substantiate our case,” a senior officer said.The police started examining her role after she wrote the report -Did UK based Indian drug lord order Dey hit?”We had no clues and were under pressure to solve the murder. We learnt that Vora was in touch with Chhota Rajan who could have ordered the killing.
At the time of Dey’s murder(on June 11) Jigna was holidaying in Sikkim. We started scrutinizing her cellphone call details and found she had made several international calls,” said a police officer.Police investigations showed the calls were to Rajan. The Mirchi report also made police suspicious.
In August, when the police arrested Rajan’s confidante Vinod Asrani, the fugitive gangster called up some people, including Vinod’s brother Kumar Asrani, and told them that he regretted the killing. The police had intercepted calls between Rajan and others.
Police has recorded the statements of Kumar and a journalist, who interviewed Rajan on Dey’s before a magistrate. Investigations showed that Vora had not only poisoned Rajan’s mind about Dey, but also provided him information on the senior scribe.
“Based on this, Rajan assigned his men to eliminate Dey. The shooters did three recces of his Ghatkopar and Powai residences before dumping him off,” said additional police commissioner Deven Bharti.The main shooter, Satish Kalia, told the police that information provided by Rajan did not help them identify Dey for five days. The fugitive gangster then asked Asrani to invite Dey to a bar in Mulund.
Three days prior to the murder, Asrani called Dey to a Mulund bar where Kalia and his associate, Anil Waghmode, identified Dey. After this they started following the senior journalist for two days. On June 11, Dey was shot dead near Hiranan.
