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Journalism of Courage
Four colleagues of arrested journalist Jigna Vora have recorded their statements in the presence of a magistrate in connection with her alleged role in the murder of senior journalist J Dey. According to the police,Vora,who was working as deputy bureau chief with The Asian Age in Mumbai,had allegedly used her office computer along with her personal computer to send e-mails.
Four colleagues from the technical department in her office have given their statements to the Magistrate. Her laptop and mobile phones were seized soon after her arrest last week. We are taking forensic opinion on this. Her office computer will be sent to the forensic department too, said special public prosecutor Dilip Shah. Statements recorded under Section 164 of CrPC before a Magistrate cannot be retracted.
When reached for comments,The Asian Age Resident Editor Hussain Zaidi said he was unaware of the development. Voras lawyer Santosh Chari said,The police never make the 164 statements public until the chargesheet is filed. I do not know what these statements claim and cannot speak on their content until I get to read them.
The police is also planning to confront Vora with arrested accused Paulson Joseph. The Crime Branch on Tuesday moved an application before the special MCOCA court seeking police custody of Joseph,who is currently in judicial custody.
The police intend to probe if Joseph allegedly provided an international calling card to Vora which they say was used in making calls to Rajan who allegedly ordered Deys murder. The polices case is that on Josephs instructions SIM cards were purchased from Dubai and used to make calls to members of the Rajan gang. SIM cards in serial order were purchased by the accused (Joseph). We need to find out how calls were made by Vora from one of the cards. That can be established only after we confront both the accused, Shah argued. The court has directed the police to produce Joseph on Wednesday.
Police sources also claimed that Vora was making use of four mobile numbers,two of which were already known to the police. We have now learnt that there were two other numbers she was using. We are trying to get the call detail records of these numbers as well. Besides this,we are also probing what alternate e-mail IDs she had created for communicating with Rajan, said a police officer,who did not wish to be named.
The police are expected to file their first chargesheet this week. Voras alleged role,which is still being probed,will be filed as a supplementary chargesheet later. We do not want to jump to any conclusions. We can always file a supplementary chargesheet in this case, Shah added.
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