Underworld don Rajendra Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan, who is currently in CBI Interpol custody after being deported from Indonesia early on Friday, has revealed the names of some of the Mumbai Police officers who were allegedly on the payroll of Dawood Ibrahim. Rajan had on Tuesday made a damning claim that some officials in Mumbai police were hand-in-glove with India’s most wanted terrorist and that the Centre needed to keep that in mind when he was questioned.
Rajan, who was arrested by Indonesian police on October 25, arrived on Friday in a special aircraft around 5.30 am at IGI Airport from where he was whisked away to CBI headquarters, escorted by special commandos and a SWAT team. The aircraft carrying Rajan, along with a team of CBI officers and others, departed for India from Bali on Thursday.
After his arrival at the agency headquarters, CBI spokesperson said a detailed medical examination was done which suggested that he was medically fit and in stable condition and no intervention was needed. The statement came after Maharashtra government had made arrangements for dialysis following reports that Rajan’s kidneys were not functioning properly.
Keeping in mind the threat to his life from the rival Dawood gang, the don will be presented before a special CBI magistrate through video conferencing, who will officially hand over his custody to the investigating agency.
In an unusual move on Thursday, palpably to avoid controversy, the Maharashtra government of its own volition handed over all the cases related to the gangster to CBI. Rajan is an accused in over 80 criminal cases of murder, attempted murder, abduction, smuggling and extortion. While seven of them were registered by the Delhi Police, the Uttar Pradesh Police had recently arrested three of his accomplices.
However, the Maharashtra government’s decision to hand over all the cases against the underworld don to CBI has not gone down well with Mumbai Police with several senior officials criticising the move stating that it has raised doubts on their ability. “The decision is a slap on the city police force as the government has directly portrayed that they don’t trust the city police as well as its crime branch,” said a Mumbai police official.
A day after the state government decided to hand over all cases against Rajan to the central agency, the CBI officials arrived at Mumbai police headquarters to meet Police Commissioner Ahmed Javed on Friday to discuss the modalities on information sharing.
Revealing how he was caught, Indonesian officials who were interrogating him said that on October 25, while Rajan was waiting in line for immigration clearance at the airport, the police asked him to step aside and state his name. Though his passport lists him as “Mohan Kumar”, the gangster answered with his real name Rajendra Niklaje.
In a smart move to ensure safe passage to don, the intelligence agencies on Friday morning used a decoy car to avoid the media glare and confuse the possible atackers as a heavy contingent of media personnel had set up camp outside the Air Force station to get a glimpse of Rajan.
Drama unfolded upon his arrival when a dummy team of special cell escorted a white ambassador car to the CBI headquarters in Lodhi Colony.
Large teams of mediapersons immediately followed the car, but it was later known that Rajan was taken in a similar bullet-proof Ambassador car in a different cavalcade to the CBI office.
Dawood wanted to surrender: lawyer
Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's former lawyer, Shyam Keswani, made a startling revelation on Friday when he said that the underworld don had all intentions of surrendering and had, at that time, sought the same conditions as are currently being given to Chhota Rajan.