New Delhi: Indian gangster Chhota Rajan was jailed for seven years on Tuesday for passport fraud, the first prison term handed to the so-called “Hindu don” who had evaded capture for more than 20 years.
Rajan, once India’s most wanted man, was found guilty, in a New Delhi court on Monday, of using a fake passport to flee the country in the late 1990s.
Three retired government officials were also convicted of helping Rajan acquire the forged document.
“All accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy to do an illegal act by illegal means,” the court said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
“Accused Rajan intentionally and knowingly furnished false information with false address and other particulars whereas in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy.”
Rajan, a feared Mumbai underworld figure, was arrested in late 2015 in Indonesia after more than two decades on the run.
He was extradited to India, where there are nearly 80 criminal cases registered against him.
Rajan is suspected of involvement in dozens of crimes including murder, exortion and drug trafficking. He dodged police for years even though Interpol flagged him in 1995 as a wanted man.
He was the alleged former right-hand man of Mumbai crime kingpin Dawood Ebrahim, who is suspected of masterminding the 1993 bomb blasts in the city that killed more than 250 people in retaliation for anti-Muslim violence a few months earlier.
Rajan parted with Ebrahim after the attacks, becoming a rival to his former ally.
He was accused of running one of several underworld outfits that had a grip on Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, in the 1980s and 1990s until a police crackdown.
Rajan portrayed himself as a “Hindu don” and began targeting those he considered to be “anti-India”, including Ebrahim’s men.
It is the first of the nearly 85 cases Rajan faces in which he has been convicted.
The others also sentenced to a seven-year jail term by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal are the then Passport Officers Jayashree Dattatray Rahate, Deepak Natvarlal Shah and Lalitha Lakshmanan.
The court has also slapped a fine of Rs 15,000 on all four.
Rajan was present via video-conferencing.
The sentence came despite his counsel Anshuman Sinha and Vijay Kumar Pandey submitting to the court that the passport was given by someone on behalf of the state. They also said their client was fighting against terrorism and helping the country.
They said that Chhota Rajan faces a threat to his life from underworld don Dawood Ebrahim.
Chhota Rajan sought leniency on the ground that he has undergone by-pass surgery and is having three daughters, who are studying.
Defence counsel S.P.M. Tripathi sought leniency for Shah contending that the 65-year-old is a retired serviceman, his wife is also a retired public servant and both of them have no child.
