As over 200 journalists and colleagues assembled to bid adieu to city's most accomplished investigative journalist, even the most hardened crime reporters were moved to tears by J Dey's sudden and brutal murder

Slideshow: J Dey's funeral

The notorious Mumbai rains did not stop over 200 people on a Sunday morning from thronging a certain grieving residence at Amrut Nagar in Ghatkopar, that of the mother of an extraordinary crime reporter J Dey, who was ruthlessly shot dead last Saturday afternoon by four bikers outside his Powai residence.


J Dey at his final resting place before being cremated

As it was, the misty wet morning failed to obscure the tears. Dey's body was brought to Amrut Nagar at 9.15 am in an ambulance from the state-run JJ Hospital.
u00a0
In a first-floor apartment house in Amrut Nagar, his mother was inconsolable as she laid her eyes upon her son.

Her agony permeated through to everyone present. Even the hardest crime journalists or the objective business reporters cried.
u00a0
People who knew him, who loved him, worked with him colleagues and proteges, who looked up to him, and who read his stories, made it a point to mark their presence to see their beloved Dey embark on the journey after life. Every rickshaw driver in Ghatkopar knew where to take you the moment you asked for Amrut Nagar.


Bina, Dey's inconsolable mother, touches her son one last time before the cremation

It is only a testimony to Dey's charismatic appeal, personally and as a journalist, thatu00a0 there was no dearth of teary-eyed palanquin bearers. Journalists across all media newspapers, television, magazines, websites and wires came forward.

Politicians were seen, most of them present in their personal capacity. Uniformed police officers and plainclothes cops were present, many who knew him personally, some on passing, but none remain untouched by the influence he had had upon them.

After the antim darshan that continued until 11.30 am, his body was taken to the crematorium, where his friend and student Nikhil Dixit performed the last rites. It was still raining. A few had umbrellas. Many didn't, or couldn't bother.

The crowd stood there, wordlessly mourning the loss of J Dey, as his byline introduced him, a name etched in countless memories, never to fade away.

Jyotirmoy Nirpendra Dey was killed by some cowards who do not want the truth to be revealed to the public. But the journalist fraternity present to pay homage to the man who dauntlessly and ceaselessly exposed and challenged crime have decided to protest the killing.


J Dey's sister Lina weeps over Dey's body, as others throng his mother's home during the antim darshan yesterday

We have taken an oath to bring the murderers to book. At noon today, a gathering of various journalists will embark on a march from Press Club towards Mantralaya, to object to this gross attack on the freedom of the press and to demand the creation of a legislation to protect fearless journalists such as Dey.