Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, alias Chhota Rajan was arrested in Bali, Indonesia, after a tip-off by the Australian police, informing that Rajan had traveled to Bali with an Indian passport by the name of Mohan Kumar.
He was caught when he revealed his true name accidentally to the authorities, not realizing he had to tell his passport name.
Fingerprint tests sufficed to reveal his true identity, and his fingerprints matched with the ones given in the Red corner notice.
Rajan had been staying in Australia since 2003 with the same passport for 12 years.
According to news sources, his passport was valid only till 2008, but he managed to renew it on July 8, 2008.
Surprisingly, Rajan had provided a valid address for the passport, tracked to Mandya, Karnataka, with the name Mohan Kumar.
Rajan has made claims that he had been in touch with Indian officers for 2-3 months!
It isn’t surprising to know that Rajan wanted to return to India and so had been in contact with the police.
He was scared to know that his former boss, Dawood Ibrahim, constantly made plans to kill him.
Dawood and Rajan split up in 1993 due to various disparities that arose between them.
According to news sources, “I never surrendered. I want to go back to India. Don’t want to go to Zimbabwe” is what he said to the reporters.
This comes from the fact that Rajan has escaped death narrowly every time Dawood had planned an attack on him.
One incident that has to be mentioned is the Bangkok incident.
In 2000, Dawood had tracked down Rajan in Bangkok, and his aide Chhota Shakeel led the attack.
It is said that Rajan made a daredevil escape by jumping through the window from his first-floor hotel room when he was attacked in his room.
He sustained bullet injuries in the process but somehow managed to get treatment in a hospital and escape with his associates’ help.
Early in 2015, a close associate of Rajan cheated on him for money and revealed that Rajan was in Newcastle, Australia, to Chhota Shakeel, who had made a final plan to eliminate him.
Rajan had created an impregnable fortress there in Australia until one of his men gave in.
But this time, due to good aides, he knew of the attack early and went underground.
I believe all these life-threatening incidents are what made the 55-year-old surrender and come back to India, thus securing himself from Dawood Ibrahim for now.
Rajan kept denying that he was the gangster against whom India had issued a red corner notice.
(Red corner notice is issued to seek the location and arrest of a person wanted by a judicial jurisdiction or an international tribunal
To (or “intending to”) his/her extradition.)
He has committed over 75 heinous crimes ranging from murder, extortion to smuggling and drug trafficking, terrorism and was on the run for 27 years!
Indian agencies headed by a CBI team brought him back to the capital, Delhi, by a chartered plane and have kept him at the CBI headquarters.
Rajan was in touch with various police officials for the last six months seeking a passage to return to India, as he feared for his life in Australia from Chhota Shakeel!
This is unbelievable, and it looks as though they worked out some ‘deal’ with the Indian officials secretly.
New Delhi’s move, obviously after consulting the Maharashtra government — to get all cases transferred to the CBI has again fueled guesswork that the authorities in Delhi are orchestrating the whole sequence.
An aura had been built over the years around Rajan on the premise that he would be a key player in the operation to nab Dawood!
Politics is running worldwide, and time will decide his fate and unravel his associates in India.
Rajan may be showcased now to irritate Pakistan, which houses Dawood Ibrahim, and as expected, he is spilling the beans by confirming that Dawood is in Pakistan.
It was recently in the news that Pakistan military commandos have been deployed to guard Dawood, who has property in Islamabad and Karachi.
What an irony this is, considering what we hear from Pakistan’s top officials concerning the issue! Islamabad still denies Dawood Ibrahim’s presence in Pakistan, refuting the evidence provided by the Indian authorities.
However, it is to be seen whether Rajan will provide more information given that he has let fate decide its course.