by Jigna Vora
She was about thirty years old, but looked beyond her years because of the various pregnancies she had been through. She had borne at least six children, and had undergone an equal number of abortions. She giggled like a college-going girl and confessed that none of her children had the same father.
‘What was your biggest job?’ I asked her.
‘I once worked at Parveen Babi’s home,’ she said.
‘The Bollywood actress?’ I said. ‘You looted her home?’
‘Not hers. She was confined to a wheelchair but she kept a close watch on me. At the slightest hint of suspicion, she would create a ruckus. So I looted one of her neighbours.’
‘How much?’
Her chest swelled with pride. ‘Rs 20 lakh.’
Later, Fatima told me that Vinita also spent a lot of her money on the men she loved. She was fond of eating at the best restaurants of the city. She delivered a baby in January 2012, and was out from jail around July 2012. However, she was arrested again for a crime and was back in Byculla Jail by August 2012. Now, she had a six-month-old baby with her. And she was pregnant again! Nobody was surprised.
Simran had been in jail when I was locked up. She was hardly eighteen or nineteen years old, but already famous in her line of work—stealing mobile phones. She lived in Mira Road in a one-bedroom flat, but her area of operation was Malad railway station, which was heavily crowded between 8.00 a.m. and 10.00 a.m. with people rushing to office. She would wear a burqa and position herself in front of the first-class ladies compartment. She would choose her victims by the clothes they wore. Her preferred choice was the girls who wore cropped tops and expensive jeans, and worked in affluent call centres in Malad. It was most likely that such women had high-end mobile phones in their purses or pockets. In a flash, Simran would stealthily flick the phone, switch it off and put it inside her purse before vanishing into the sea of people at the station, which was made easier by her short and slim demeanour. The hapless victims did not even realize their phone had been flicked until the train left the station.
‘What would you do with the phones you stole?’ I asked.
‘I sold them to a shop in Malad east. The shop owner would destroy the SIM card and pay me in cash, on the spot.’
‘How much did you usually make?’
She smiled, displaying a chipped tooth in the corner of her mouth. ‘About 50,000 rupees a day.’
Simran loved shopping in the big malls of Malad. She was also a regular at a very famous pub in suburban Mumbai. All these girls who stole for a living displayed a deep understanding of human psychology. She did not work on the weekends, because offices were shut. Simran had also chosen Malad railway station as her zone of operation because office-goers did not report theft as they feared the hassles of engaging with the police. Since the crime was committed on the railway platform, it fell under the jurisdiction of the Railway Protection Force, which is not the most motivated crime-fighting unit. Most of her victims did not even come back to search for their lost phones, and simply gave up hope of recovering the device, while Simran made a fortune. When I met her, she was pregnant, but she steered clear of discussions that veered close to the identity of her husband.
‘Whom do you stay with?’ I asked her.
‘I stay alone,’ she said. ‘My family stays in Uttar Pradesh.’
Later, Fatima told me that Simran was heavily into drugs and boyfriends. Jocularly, she went to the extent of calling Simran ‘characterless’ because she felt Simran was having an affair with her husband’s friend. When I questioned Fatima about her similar escapades with Javed, Fatima took great pride in explaining that all her sexual encounters with Javed had happened only after her divorce with Saleem.
‘Unlike Simran, I never two-time my men,’ Fatima said and laughed.
*
Milee was a good-looking girl who had been arrested in August 2011, prior to my arrest. Her father had passed away, while her mother and younger brother lived in Odisha. Hardly twenty, she used to work in a factory in her village.
‘My mother and I had an argument,’ she said. ‘So I just boarded a random train, and it brought me here.’
‘Did you have any money when you left home?’
‘About 5,000 rupees,’ she said.
‘And did you know anyone in this city?’
‘No.’
‘How did you find a place to live, then?’
‘The autorickshaw driver who picked me at Kurla station guided me to an area near Powai.’
‘And how did you get arrested?’
Milee had found a job as an assistant to a hairdresser on the sets of a TV serial. She would travel to work by bus every day, and noticed that a boy would board the same bus as her, and was displaying an interest in her. Eventually, they fell in love and he also began picking her up from work every day. On the way back home, they would sit on the last seat of the bus. Her boyfriend would often fondle her breasts and kiss her when he thought no one was watching.
He was the one who devised a new idea of making money. Late in the nights, in the JVLR area, Milee would wear skimpy clothes and lure unsuspecting men to isolated areas with the promise of sex. Moments later, her boyfriend would arrive and they would attack the victim and make off with money and valuables. The con was eventually busted, and Milee got arrested, while her boyfriend escaped.
One night, Milee asked me if I had a boyfriend. I was single then, but Milee refused to believe me. She had heard from other inmates that I was having an affair with Himanshu Roy, who had been instrumental in my arrest. I had no idea how to answer that, but her questions never stopped.
‘Didi,’ she asked me, ‘what is rape?’
I was aghast. ‘What happened, Milee? Did someone force you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I am only curious to know.’
I explained the meaning of the term to her, and she listened intently.
‘Didi,’ she said, ‘I want to experience rape once.’
Disconcerted and frustrated, I blurted, ‘Have you gone mad?’
‘What difference would it make if my boyfriend raped me?’ she said and laughed. ‘We have had sex so many times.’
Milee was hopeful that her boyfriend would bail her out. She often returned dejectedly from court hearings at Borivali, because her boyfriend did not turn up to help her. I could completely relate with that, because none of my friends showed up to support me too. Every time I was taken to court, my eyes turned towards a high-rise building that stood on the way from Byculla Jail to Kala Ghoda court. A friend I’d known for years lived in that building, on the fourth floor. I would expect him to be present in court, for nothing else but moral support. But like so many others, he failed to turn up. However, Milee’s faith in her boyfriend never wavered. Eventually, he turned up, and Milee got bail. Her smile that day filled me with hope.
20
THE BIRTHDAY GIFT
I turned thirty-seven on 21 February 2012, the day the police filed a charge sheet against me.
Since my arrest in November, they had been racing against time to file a charge sheet against me. As per the Indian Penal Code, the police have to file it within three months. But since the Crime Branch had pressed MCOCA charges against me, they could ask the court for gradual extensions up to a maximum of three additional months. Using the same strategy, the Crime Branch had filed the first charge sheet against the ten accused on 3 December 2011, about six months after J. Dey’s murder. The reasons cited for these extensions included the delay in processing the forensics reports, ongoing investigations, and post-mortem reports, etc.
My name was not included in the first charge sheet. The police decided to file a supplementary charge sheet against me at a later stage. I was accused of providing Chhota Rajan with J. Dey’s photograph, phone number and office and home addresses. But during the course of the investigation, the police also came up with the notion that I had instigated Chhota Rajan to kill J. Dey.
My legal recourse ultimately depended
on the charge sheet. Even though the Crime Branch had conducted elaborate press conferences to detail my involvement in the murder, none of that was admissible in a court of law. The charge sheet thus became the most important document because then the police would be going on record to say what I was accused of and the evidence they had to prove the charges.
On one hand, I had to worry about the charge sheet, while on the other, I had to focus on surviving life in jail. Life in Byculla Jail was torturous. At first, I hoped and prayed to get bail. But as days turned into months, I dreaded getting bail because I was frightened to face the world outside. It sent shivers down my spine to think about answering questions and facing suspicious stares. My career and reputation had been destroyed.
Jayesh Vithlani, my lawyer, would meet me regularly at Byculla Jail. He would brief me on the progress of the case, and always advise me to be patient. My uncle and a cousin brother would also come to meet me, and they would keep me posted about the world outside the walls of the prison. I often asked Jayesh if the police were going to ask for an extension to file the charge sheet because that would mean a further delay in my bail. He did not have an opinion on that.
The police had confiscated my personal laptop, the hard disk from the desktop I used at the Asian Age office, and my cellphone. The forensic reports of these devices were still pending. I was worried that the police would plant evidence against me. Mostly, I feared that they would plant J. Dey’s photograph, or that of his bike, in my devices, and claim that I had it stored.
Incidentally, months before I had been arrested, I was passing by Amar Mahal Junction on my way to Chembur and happened to notice a high-end sports bike parked outside a shop. I had clicked a photograph of that shining, yellow two-wheeler only to show it to my son, who was extremely fond of imported bikes. I became paranoid that the police would use this against me. Even in custody, I had confessed to Inspector Ramesh Mahale that I had a photograph of a bike on my phone but that bike did not belong to J. Dey.
My fears may sound like hysteria now, but the fact was that the police had arrested me in a case where I had no involvement, and there was no reason why they would not use unfair means to have me convicted.
I had a purchased an Apple MacBook before my arrest, and I had not even learnt to operate it properly before I was put behind the bars. This was the laptop that they had confiscated. There was no question about finding J. Dey’s photograph on my laptop. But I had lots of Hindi songs from the 1970s and ’80s on my hard disk, mostly by Mohammad Rafi and Kishore Kumar, and composed by R.D. Burman. There were some personal photographs from a visit to Bangkok in 2010, a junket that came from the office. We had been staying in a resort, and some photographs in the swimming pool, of me wearing a swimming costume. I feared the police would leak these to the media.
The police had accused me of emailing J. Dey’s details to Chhota Rajan. They had shot off a letter rogatory to Google to obtain the emails in question from my gmail account. I often wondered if the police could hack into my account and create the evidence they wanted. I prayed fervently, calling upon God to undo the wrong that had been done to me.
I also wanted to know who had recorded false statements against me, and that would only be clear once the charge sheet was filed. The police had pulled out my CDRs (call detail records) from my telecom operator. Though I was nowhere connected to the crime, my personal life was all out in the open. The police knew whom I was dating, what I was eating, what I was shopping for, and every other possible detail. I was also worried about the safety of my family and friends with whom I had spoken regularly, for the police could frame whomever they wanted to.
While in custody, I was taken to court every fourteen days, but apart from my lawyer and family members, none of my friends came to meet me. Around fifteen people from my family, including my uncles and aunts, would turn up for each of my court visits without fail. Despite this, the media floated reports that my family had disowned me. In Byculla Jail, Jaya Chheda spared no opportunity to dampen my spirits further. She was sure that Ramesh Mahale, who was the investigating officer for her case and mine, would file such a strong charge sheet against me that I would languish in jail for ever.
Jayesh informed me that rumours were afloat that the police would allow my discharge from the case on 10 February 2012, since no incriminating evidence had been found against me. I began praying fervently again, praying for my luck to turn around. Usually, I was produced in court surrounded by the usual security of two women constables armed with rifles, two unarmed women constables, two male constables and one inspector. People charged of crimes under the MCOCA were always provided with this kind of security cover so that they did not escape under any circumstance. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, for I was treated like a terrorist. However, my fellow inmates took great pride in this arrangement because they thought my security was on par with that of a minister. Fatima lamented the fact that the male constables who accompanied her to court were so frail that they would not even get an erection!
When the day arrived, surrounded by the policemen, I walked into the court at Kala Ghoda. Courtroom number 56 on the fifth floor was jam-packed with media personnel. My hopes of freedom were dashed again when Raja Thakare, the public prosecutor, informed the judge that the charge sheet had been sent to the police commissioner’s office for sanction before it could be produced in the court. This meant that eventually, the charge sheet would be filed and I would not be discharged. As a crime journalist, I knew Raja Thakare professionally, and he had given me quite a few leads on the Telgi scam. This added to my humiliation because now he had the job to ensure I stayed behind bars. He acknowledged my presence with a nod of his head. Ten days were additionally provided to the prosecution, and 21 February 2012 was fixed as the next date for my court visit.
My paranoia reached its peak in these ten days because now the trial was a certainty. I had also developed a psychological aversion to the court, and my stomach would ache uncontrollably every time a court visit was due. On the day of the visit, I would have to use the filthy toilet multiple times to ease myself. I even stopped eating to avoid this situation, but it didn’t help.
On 21 February, the court was packed again with media personnel. Crime Branch officers arrived with a big, white bag made of jute and produced the charge sheet before Judge S.M. Modak. Jayesh was not available on that day. Later, Raja Thakare told me to hold on to my faith in God. Since it was my birthday, my father’s elder brother had brought a piece of pastry for me, and the court granted them permission to give it to me. I choked as I put a spoonful of that cake in my mouth. My uncle had always been fond of me since childhood. If I ever wanted a toy, he was the one I would rush to. When I was a barely six years old, I asked him to bring me a VCR from Dubai so that I could watch Amitabh Bachchan’s 1976 movie Hera Pheri on TV. He brought me a ‘National’ VCR, which was a favourite amongst those who worked in the Middle East. This was the first time he had come to see me since my arrest, and he was crying inconsolably. My only thought at that moment was to prove my innocence in this case.
After returning to Byculla Jail, around 8.30 p.m., I was watching Doordarshan on the small TV when the news anchor read a report of a charge sheet being filed against me. Some of the most thickened criminals in the city turned to stare at me. I had no idea where to look!
The next morning, a newspaper chose to carry headlines saying the Crime Branch had gifted the charge sheet to me for my birthday. One news story stated that I had exchanged thirty-three calls with Chhota Rajan. I was stunned. The headlines only accentuated my fears that the police had tampered with evidence because I had only spoken to Chhota Rajan once—for an interview over the Pakmodiya Street shoot-out in May 2011, wherein two shooters had gunned down Iqbal Kaskar’s driver to death. Iqbal was Dawood Ibrahim’s brother, and their gang had been warring with Chhota Rajan’s ever since the two had parted ways around 1993. During the course of his interview, Chhota Rajan had only calle
d me thrice on the same day. The first two calls lasted barely five seconds and had got disconnected. The third call was the actual interview. This story was already in the public domain. How the number of calls changed from three to thirty-three was beyond my wildest imagination! There was another story that said that Paulson, another accused in the J. Dey murder case, had confessed about my involvement. But Paulson had been arrested way before me, and his confession had also been recorded much earlier, when there had been no mention of my name.
Three days later, Jayesh delivered a 3,000-page charge sheet to me in jail. The sheer bulk of the document frightened me. All the inmates were astonished that a supplementary charge sheet had run into 3,000 pages. At night, when other inmates were asleep, I went about studying the charge sheet. I started turning page after page to search for the mention of thirty-three calls between Chhota Rajan and me. But even after I reached the last page, there was no such statement in the charge sheet. So, the media had cooked up this story on their own, or it had been maliciously fed to them. And they had lapped up these false reports and printed them without a thought of the damage it would cause to me. They never bothered checking my charge sheet either. All these reports were published ‘according to sources’. My own judgement was that this source was Himanshu Roy. He had been present when Hussain Zaidi, the editor of the Asian Age, had met then home minister R.R. Patil in connection with my case. Himanshu had made a similar statement at that time.
As I scoured through the charge sheet, I realized that most of the pages were filled with telecom CDRs of my number and those of the witnesses. The statements of various witnesses covered barely forty pages. Some statements were from the cops themselves, who were present for the panchnama of my arrest, and for the confiscation of my laptop and mobile phone.
The charge sheet made no mention of any email exchanges between Chhota Rajan and me. Chhota Rajan’s email ID was also not mentioned in the email. I made my notes and observations on the blank sides so that I could discuss them with Jayesh later. Even the letter rogatory to Google did not reveal any suspicious emails.
