Missing witness dropped in Dey murder case

Mumbai: Special public prosecutor, Pradeep Gharat, on Monday informed the court that the eyewitness in the 2011 case involving murder of senior crime journalist J. Dey after he went missing had been dropped.

Advocate Gharat said, “We informed the judge on Monday that the non-bailable warrant (NBW) issued against the witness had come un-served and the witness was still untraceable and hence, the prosecution had decided not to examine him during trial.”

Earlier this month, prosecution informed the court that the eyewitness in the 2011 Dey murder case had gone missing and was untraceable. At the time, special judge Sameer Adkar directed prosecution to trace the witness at the earliest as only a few witnesses were left to depose before the court in the case. The witness who went missing was among those to be provided protection after one of the witnesses complained to the court that he was threatened by men who came to his house. The court at the time directed the CBI to conduct an enquiry to find out how identity of the witnesses had been revealed.

Mr Dey was murdered on June 11, 2011, near Powai garden while he was on his way home. According to prosecution, the criminal conspiracy to kill Mr Dey was hatched between 2010 and 2011 and all this was done on the instruction of then fugitive gangster Chhota Rajan. Rajan conspired to eliminate Mr Dey because he was under the impression that the senior journalist was showing him in bad light.