Mumbai : Gangster Chhota Rajan’s arrest in Indonesia is a “significant” development and his questioning is expected to shed light on hitherto unknown facts related to underworld and criminal cases linked to his syndicate, former and serving police officials claimed on Monday.
The 55-year-old fugitive from Mumbai, whose real name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, was apprehended in Bali, Indonesia, after being on the run for decades.
“Rajan’s arrest can reveal unknown facts about underworld-police-political nexus,” said YP Singh, IPS officer-turned-lawyer. The details of conspiracy behind the murder of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey on June 11, 2011, executed allegedly at the behest of Rajan, and firing on another scribe in early 1990s may come to fore, he said. Also, law-enforcing agencies could come to know of Rajan’s connections in the killings of his own hirelings in India and abroad, said a Crime Branch officer.
One such case is that of gangster Farid Tanasha, a close Rajan aide who was killed in Mumbai on June 2, 2010, as Rajan suspected he was in the process to join a rival gang, he said. The case of attempt on the life of Iqbal Kaskar, brother of Dawood Ibrahim, in 2010 in South Mumbai, may also get solved, said another officer.
An IPS officer said that several city-based builders, who are suspected to be associated with the crime boss, may face the heat. Mumbai Crime Branch is in possession of a list of builders who police suspect have links with the Rajan gang, he said.
Former Mumbai Police Commissioner MN Singh, who had played a key role in eliminating underworld gangs in the city, said: “Going by my past experience, I would say that neither am I excited nor very much hopeful because Rajan is yet to be deported to the country. And even if he is deported here, he has become very old, sick and almost non-operative with his gang,” Singh said.
Recalling his days of action against the Mumbai underworld, he said: “It has been over 15 years when Rajan was shot in September 2000, landing him in hospital. I was Mumbai police commissioner and along with Home Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and Additional Home Secretary, I met foreign minister Jaswant Singh and requested him to send crime branch team to Bangkok.”
“Jaswant Singhji accepted our request and I sent three crime branch inspectors to keep a watch on Rajan so that he could be arrested and deported. Our officers stayed there over a fortnight without any weapon and liasioning with local police and keeping a watch.”
But on a day suddenly news surfaced that Rajan had escaped from the hospital, which was impossible without the support of the local police, said Singh.
Singh also said that Mumbai police crime branch should come forward and ask for his custody as Mumbai police is the prime stake-holder in the cases registered against him.
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Rajan surrendered five days ago?
According to sources, Chhota Rajan’s ‘surrender’ was facilitated by on October 21. However, he was officially arrested on Sunday at Bali airport. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is said to be the brain behind the operation. Following Rajan’s ‘arrest’, agencies are working overtime to get concrete evidence to substantiate their claim of Dawood Ibrahim’s presence in Pakistan.
When he became the ‘nationalist’ don
After the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Chhota Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim fell out completely, with Rajan positioning himself as a ‘patriotic don’ not wanting to betray his country, and challenging the hegemony of Dawood as a “people’s gangster”. To demonstrate his claims of being a Hindu don, Rajan threatened to kill those accused of engineering the blasts. The Shiv Sena laid bare its affection for Chota Rajan in an editorial in Saamna, attributing Chhota Rajan’s survival following an attack by the D-gang to “good fortune”.
Wife Sujata runs his ‘real-ty’ business
The crime branch recently raided properties of Khushi Developers, run by Chhota Rajan’s wife Sujata. Media reports say the Rajan gang had forcibly taken over reconstruction projects at Tilak Nagar from other builders and transferred them to Khushi Developers. Rajan allegedly plunged into the real estate in a big way, and chose eastern suburbs as his gang had influence in these localities.
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