I had first heard of 'J Dey' when I met his wife six years ago. I was intrigued to meet the man who went with just an initial as his first name.

A few years later, he would walk into our office to set up and head the crime team. The intrigue only grew from there.


Shiboli Chatterjee, News Editor

A gentle giant, his flamboyant stories and hard-hitting expos ufffds did not seem to gel with the modest, unassuming Dey.

Terribly shy, he would often come up to my desk, and, without a word, hand over a tiny chit of paper, saying what his big story for the next day was.
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I later realised that that was probably what made him arguably the city's most accomplished crime journalist. The arrogance was only in the stories, never in the man.

We often ended up disagreeing about certain stories, but he would always end the day with a smile and the question (often over potato chips) "Aaj ka quota khatam?", referring to the number of crime stories submitted for the next day's paper. And if there weren't enough, he would always manage to rustle up a few more.

What will stay with me forever is his terrifying fearlessness. Dons, gangsters, errant cops, business heads, politicians nobody could make him take a step back, when he was sure of his story. If I am able to some day have a fraction of his courage, be it in my career or in life, I would consider myself blessed.

As cops and netas scratch their heads even after two days, unable to tell us who dared to kill our beloved Mr Dey, there is probably one man who would have been able to get to the bottom of this gruesome crime story before anybody else. Unfortunately, that man was gunned down on Saturday afternoon.u00a0