A special CBI team interrogating long-absconding underworld don Chhota Rajan will visit Karnataka in a couple of days to enquire from the regional passport officials who had issued him a passport in 2003 on a fake name and address.
The passport was made using the Tatkal (urgent) service with its validity date till 2008, sources said. “But Rajan managed to renew it on July 8, 2008 with its validity till July 7, 2018.” The probe agency has booked Rajan in a case under the Passport Act, 1967, and separate sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
Apart from that, a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating, cheating by impersonation, forgery of documents under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code has also been added in the same First Information Report (FIR).
The case pertaining to this fake passport is the only matter for probing which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has got 10 days custody of the mafia don. Maharashtra Police is yet to transfer any criminal cases registered against Rajan to the CBI. Rajan is wanted for over 85 crimes, ranging from murder to extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking. Apart from Maharashtra, he has cases against him in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and with the CBI.
Rajan stayed in Australia on the same passport for 12 years, between September 22, 2003 and October 24, 2015. Sources said Rajan got an Indian passport (No.G9273860) made on the fake name of Mohan Kumar, resident of 107/B, Old M.C. Road, Azad Nagar, Mandya in Karnataka. “The passport was made from Harare in Zimbabwe on September 22, 2003,” sources said.