Mumbai police get cracking in journalist murder case

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Under pressure from the government and media organizations, the Mumbai police got cracking on the investigations into journalist Jyotirmoy Dey's murder, transferring an assistant commissioner of police (ACP) suspected of threatening the scribe, police said on Tuesday.

ACP Anil Mahabole, the in-charge of the Azad Maidan division of south Mumbai, was abruptly shunted late Monday to an insignificant post in the local arms constabulary in Naigaon, an officer said.

Mahabole already has several pending inquiries against him and has been under a cloud for threatening another Mumbai journalist, T. K. Dwivedi, a colleague of Dey.

"A few weeks ago, when I was arrested in connection with an Official Secrets Acts case, Mahabole came and threatened me inside the Governemnt Railway Police lock-up room. I have lodged a separate complaint in this regard and the matter is being investigated," Dwivedi, who goes by the alias of 'Akela' said on Tuesday.

Two weeks before Dey was killed, Mahabole had spoken to him, but Dey did not reveal the nature of the conversation, he added.

Dey was allegedly threatened by Mahabole a few years ago when he had named him as one of the Mumbai police officers having connections with underworld mafia don Dawood Ibrahim's gang.

Mumbai police on Monday also released a sketch of one of the four suspected killers who pumped bullets into Dey on Saturday. The sketch, prepared following inputs of eyewitnesses, described the suspect as a youth aged between 20-25 years, dark complexioned, 5.5 feet tall and of medium build.

Over 500 journalists of various print and electronic media organisations and associations, including the Press Club, Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, Mumbai Crime Reporters' Association and TV Journalists Association, Monday took out a protest march to Mantralaya, the state secretariat.

The journalists had met Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who rejected a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into Dey's killing.

Now, the journalists plan to launch a protest after June 15, including a relay hunger strike and moving the Bombay High Court, seeking directions to the state government to hand over the Dey murder probe to CBI.

Dey was shot dead by four unidentified motorcycle-borne assailants near his residence in Powai Saturday afternoon, sending shock waves in the city's media circles.

His funeral was held on Sunday.