Rajan gang has been keeping an eye on Dawood Ibrahim’s movements and providing vital information about him to intelligence agencies.
Indonesian authorities have arrested underworld don Chhota Rajan Nikhalje wanted in several murder cases. The 55 year old Rajan has been on run off since more than two decades and was reportedly ill. The Interpol had flagged him as a wanted man back in 1995. According to sources, Rajan gang has been keeping an eye on Dawood Ibrahim’s movements and providing vital information about him to intelligence agencies. Will Rajan’s arrest enable the Indian government to catch hold of Dawood Ibrahim? Rajan was a key aide of Dawood but he parted ways with latter after the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. Differences between the both had arisen after Dawood henchman Subhash Thakur killed three Chhota Rajan groupies. After the bomb blasts even the Mumbai underworld was divided on religious lines as Chhota Rajan positioned himself as a Hindu gangster. To demonstrate his claims of being a Hindu don, Rajan threatened to kill those accused of engineering the Bombay bomb blasts.
According to the reports, Interpol, an international investigative agency, had flagged off Rajan’s movement from Australia’s Canaberra airport to Indonesia’s Bali airport on Sunday evening. The Bali police officials who were working on a tip-off detained the underworld don.
Bali police spokesman Heri Wiyanto said, “We received information from police in Canberra on (Sunday) about the red notice for a murderer. We arrested the man at the airport. What we know is that this man was suspected to have carried out 15 to 20 murders in India.”
Bali police were coordinating with Interpol and Indian authorities, Wiyanto said, adding it was likely Nikalje would be deported to India.
A spokesperson for Australian Federal Police said Interpol in Canberra had alerted Indonesian authorities “who apprehended Nikalje at the request of Indian authorities”.
The federal police confirmed last month that Nikalje was living in Australia under another identity and had been in discussions with Indian authorities, the spokesperson said, but would not provide further details.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh and CBI Director Anil Sinha confirmed the development.
“Once identification and verification is done, appropriate action will be taken,” said Rajnath Singh.
Singh’s remark came after the Central Bureau of Investigation’s director Anil Sinha said Rajan had been held at the agency’s request made through the Interpol.
Born into a Marathi family in Mumbai, Rajan Nikalaje grew up in the lower middle class locality of Tilaknagar in Chembur, a suburb in central Mumbai. It is alleged that selective police action against the Dawood gangsters during the Shiv Sena regime and their elimination in encounters helped strengthen Rajan’s position, just as Dawood himself had benefitted in the 1980s.
