Hansal Mehta will direct a fictional series for Netflix based on Mumbai journalist Jigna Vora’s memoir Behind The Bars In Byculla: My Days in Prison. The series is titled Scoop, Netflix announced today.
Jigna Vora was arrested on the charge of instigating the gangster Chhota Rajan to kill crime reporter Jyotirmoy Dey in 2011. According to the Mumbai Police, Vora and Dey were professional rivals.
A few months after Dey’s death, the police added Vora to its list of suspects. Vora, who was the deputy bureau chief of the Asian Age newspaper’s Mumbai edition, was accused of passing on personal information about Dey to Rajan. She was granted bail in 2012 and was cleared of all charges in 2018.
Scoop has been created by Hansal Mehta and Mrunmayee Lagoo Waikul and produced by Matchbox Shots. The writers are Vaikul, Mirat Trivedi and Anu Singh Chadhary.
“…Scoop is a character drama that traces the journey of Jagruti Pathak, an ambitious crime journalist,” a press release stated. “Her world comes crashing down when she is charged for the heinous murder of a fellow journalist, Jaideb Sen, and ends up in a prison cell with those she once reported on. The others charged include a notorious sharp shooter, a nefarious bookie and the infamous, Chhota Rajan! The truth is quietly buried as she waits out a trial.”
Mehta’s credits include the films Shahid and Aligarh, the web series Scam 1992: The Hansal Mehta Story and an upcoming series on stamp paper scam mastermind Abdul Karim Telgi. Mehta said in a press statement, “I am seeking to delve deep into a tale of our mediatised times and the human cost of stories that we consume on a daily basis.”
Match Shots producer Sanjay Routray added, “When we first laid our hands on Jigna Vora’s book Behind the Bars in Byculla, we were astounded and instantly knew that this inspirational story of grit and courage needs to be told on a wider medium.”
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Arrested, acquitted: Jigna Vora recounts her trauma after being accused in journalist J Dey’s murder