[News]Scoop: Netflix show on colliding worlds of crime and media

[Arunabh.ly__]

Scoop is a gripping tale of a real-life crime, Mumbai's mafia and the role of the police and the press

 

The sensational murder of India's best known crime reporter in June 2011 and the subsequent arrest of a female crime journalist on allegations of being involved in the murder had stunned the country.

Jyotirmoy Dey, po[CENSORED]rly known as J Dey, was shot dead in Mumbai by men on motorcycles on orders from one of India's most notorious gangsters, Chhota Rajan - he was convicted in 2018 and is serving a life sentence for the killing.

But somehow, Jigna Vora, a newspaper journalist, got caught up in the storm and was charged - falsely - for involvement in the murder.

She spent over nine months in Byculla jail before being released on bail. A single parent to a 10-year-old boy, Ms Vora was acquitted in 2018 since the police failed to produce any evidence against her.

This story of a journalist's murder - and of another's wrongful confinement - is the subject of Scoop, a new webseries on Netflix that is wowing critics and viewers alike.

Based on Ms Vora's 2019 memoir - Behind The Bars In Byculla: My Days in Prison - Scoop is a gripping tale of a real-life crime, Mumbai's mafia and the role of the police and the press. Many of the real-life incidents have been replicated, but Ms Vora says "the series makers have exercised cinematic leverage".

 

Jyotirmoy Dey was shot dead in Mumbai by men on motorcycles on orders from one of India's most notorious gangsters,

 

As Ms Vora's screen avatar Jagruti Pathak, who lives by chasing scoops that would get her a byline on the front page, ends up in a prison cell with those she once reported on, she also begins to reflect on her life and priorities.

Ms Vora told the BBC that she's pleased with the way the series has turned out but watching it was difficult.

"It was like revisiting the whole trauma. It was difficult to see on screen what I went through, the humiliation and character assassination I faced. But I'm happy that the series got made because people needed to see the truth that I was not guilty.

A few months after J Dey's murder, rumours started swirling around that a female crime reporter was involved in the murder. Some of it was reported in the media, attributed to police sources.

"We were also wondering who it could be? It didn't even cross my mind that it could be me," she told me.

In October-end when one newspaper carried a report naming her, she says her first reaction was of shock. She then knew that her arrest was imminent - and she was arrested on 25 November.

"It was a very tough period for me, I was scared, I even thought of committing suicide, but my family inspired me to fight. They told me that if I killed myself, then people would think that I was guilty. If I wanted to clear my name, I had to fight."

J Dey's murder, Ms Vora says, changed her life forever. The police said she was involved with the underworld and had helped the murderers by providing them information about J Dey. She was charged under the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (Mcoca) - a law that carries the death penalty in serious cases.

 

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