WEB CHUTNEY

Chhota Rajan was initially Dawood Ibrahim’s right hand man, but later on became the boss of a major crime syndicate in India.

Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan parted ways over the Mumbai bombings as Rajan claimed to be a patriotic Don who doesn’t want to betray his country. His crimes include extortion, murder, smuggling, drug trafficking and film finance.

Chhota Rajan was recently arrested on October 25^th 2015 in Bali.

While arrested gangster Chhota Rajan will be crucial to cracking cases such as the murder of journalist J Dey and other criminal or terrorism cases registered against him and others in Mumbai, there is little hope that he will have any new piece of information to share with Indian agencies.

Sources in the security establishment say Rajan has been out of touch with the core underworld as he has led an isolated life since several years now.

Even as these reports have been doing the rounds, there is one theory that the arrest may have been stage-managed by Rajan himself as he wanted to return to India due to his ill health and feared being killed by rival Chhota Shakeel.

“By December 2014, Rajan virtually had no members in his gang. He was in touch with some people from Uttar Pradesh and other states to get men for any job temporarily. He was finished as a ganglord,”

said an official who had been tracking Rajan’s movements.

India wasn’t interested in having him extradited in 1998!

This state of affairs is a far cry from the year 1998, when Rajan was detained in Thailand while travelling on a fictitious passport,

but he walked out within a day. Sources said the Union home ministry as well as the security agencies were not interested in getting him extradiated.

Officials said intelligence agencies were using him to counter fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim.

Rajan was instrumental in eliminating certain ISI and Dawood aides, including Nepal MLA Dilshad Mirza Baig, ISI mastermind Khalid Masood, Parvez Tanda in Nepal- all with the blessings of the Indian intelligence. There were unconfirmed reports that Rajan was involved in the killing of Takiuddin Wahid Khan of East-West Airlines, suspected to be close to Dawood. He also allegedly orchestrated the killing of Nepal cable operator Jamim Shah, another D-Company aide.

The failed plot to kill Dawood at his daughter’s wedding

In 2005, the agency had reportedly sent two Rajan aides - Vicky Malhotra and the late Farid Tanasha- to eliminate Dawood in Karachi

“The plan was that when Dawood would arrive at the venue, the two shooters would kill him,”

said an officer.

Rajan was nabbed in 2000, but he managed to bribe his way out

“As far as I can recall, it was Rajan who used his clout and paid a huge bribe to free himself in 1998,”

said a retired police officer.

The second time Rajan slipped from the Thai police was in September 2000 when Chhota Shakeel’s shooter Munna Jingada carried out a serious attack on him in Bangkok. While Rajan was seriously wounded in the firing, his confidante Rohit Verma was shot dead. Rajan was admitted at Samitivej Hospital in Thailand.

A team of five police officers flew to Thailand to record his statement and get him back to India but before this, Rajan’s allies Vijay Shetty and Santosh Shetty helped him flee from the hospital. Thai government suspended five officials for negligence and a police officer came under the radar for allegedly aiding Rajan’s escape

Now that they will have Chhota Ratan in custody. India will now use Chhota Rajan to find out about Dawood Ibrahim whereabouts in Pakistan.

Original version of this story can be found here.