Underworld don Chhota Rajan arrested in Indonesia
Rajan held in Bali after being on the run for decades
New Delhi: After a series of flip flops, the Home Ministry and Indian premier investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investivation (CBI), confirmed on Monday that underworld don Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan was arrested on Sunday night by Indonesian police in Bali.
Rajnath said mob boss Rajan was arrested by Indonesian authorities in the popular resort island of Bali after being on the run for decades. He is likely to be deported to India soon.
“It is official. We have captured Chhota Rajan. The identification process is on,” Rajnath said.
Rajan is believed to be a close associate of India’s most wanted underworld gangster Dawood Ebrahim for many years.
“At the request of CBI (Interpol) India, the Bali police has arrested an Indian national, Mohan Kumar, on October 25, 2015. Mohan Kumar alias Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan is a fugitive and CBI has been pursuing the matter with Australian authorities. This is a good and close cooperation between India, Australia and Indonesia. We thank Indonesia and Australia for their prompt action at our request. Further action will be taken as required under the law,” CBI Director Anil Sinha told the Gulf News.
Confusion prevailed immediately after the news of Rajan’s arrest broke as several reports said the fugitive held in Bali was a serial killer called ‘Cyanide Mohan’, sentenced to death in India after his 2013 conviction for allegedly killing at least 20 women.
Mohan Kumar, 56, is accused of using cyanide to kill 20 women from 2003 to 2009. A Mangalore court had sentenced him to death in December 2013. Kumar, known as Cyanide Mohan, is believed to have preyed on women looking for marriage.
However, the Indian government clarified much later that it was Chhota Rajan and not Cyanide Mohan who was detained by the Indonesian police.
Wanted over a series of murders in India, 55-year-old Rajan was living in Australia under another identity. Acting on a tip-off from Australian police, Indonesian authorities detained Rajan Sunday as he arrived from Sydney. He had been on the run for two decades and Interpol had flagged him as a wanted man in 1995.
“We received information from police in Canberra yesterday (Sunday) about the red notice for a murderer. We arrested the man at the airport yesterday. What we know is that this man was suspected to have carried out 15 to 20 murders in India,” Indonesian police is quoted as telling the media.
Chhota Rajan began his career in crime as a petty thief and bootlegger under the wings of Rajan Nair, who was known as ‘Bada Rajan’. He became the head of Nair’s gang after the latter’s murder. Before he fled abroad in 1988, Chhota Rajan began working with mob boss Dawood Ebrahim. The two fell out after Ebrahim masterminded a string of bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people and injured hundreds more.
