Founder of Blitz, which captured popular imagination with its screaming headlines and campaigns, Karanjia faced bans and endless court cases but continuously courted controversy.

“He was just down with fever. He died in his sleep,” said his niece, Virginia Rai, who also worked as a journalist with Blitz. Karanjia had launched The Daily, a morninger, but that too had to shut down.

Karanjia is survived by his daughter Rita Mehta.

One of the first campaigns his Blitz undertook in pre-Independence India was against the order to hang Communist leader K P R Gopalan in a Kerala peasant uprising. “GOPALAN MUST NOT HANG,” screamed the headline. The government later revoked the High Court order. His newspaper ran campaigns on the Commander Nanavati case, collecting signatures for the mercy plea of the naval officer charged with murder, and the Haridas Mundhra-LIC Conspiracy, which rocked Parliament.

At Karanjia’s Framrose Court residence in South Mumbai today, relatives and a few friends gathered in the afternoon to remember a man who defined a new stream of journalism in India.

V Gangadhar, who was a columnist with Blitz for several years, said: “He always encouraged me to write bold columns, a complete opposite of other editors of those times, since many did not accept satire.”

Calling Karanjia, a “human journalist” as opposed to an intellectual one, Gangadhar said he believed in constant change. “He was prepared to do anything new, untested. Even though he was accused of yellow journalism, he exposed many scandals.”