Chhota Rajan: The Runner-Up Gangster

On the road to Tilaknagar Police Station in Chembur, Mumbai, there is unusual activity, with television vans and reporters arrayed on it. This is the first police station where a complaint was registered against Chhota Rajan. Later ten complaints followed but their status continued to be ‘under investigation’. Policemen have come and gone in here, the newer ones always told to keep a watch on Rajan’s family who reside at Tilaknagar. This they did half-heartedly because after all no one really expected Rajan or Rajendra Sadashiv Nikhalje, the second biggest in the Mumbai underworld’s pecking order, to be seen in the flesh again.

Not anymore. Now that Rajan has been unexpectedly arrested in Bali, files on him are being dusted out at the police station and vigilance on the family intensified. When Rajan started his journey as a fugitive 28 years ago, Tilaknagar was a backward crime infested area riddled with gangs. Born here in 1960, he took to crime early in life and by his teens was a well entrenched local goon. The next leap was getting together with Rajan Mahadev Nair or Bada Rajan, another Tilaknagar gangster. They went from selling tickets in the black to extortion, kidnappings and contract killings.

It is hard to imagine the foundation of a massive criminal enterprise on cinema tickets, and yet that was the first money-spinning operation of the two Rajans. In cinema theatres, the gang either killed or assaulted existing black marketers to take over the business. The two remained firm friends until the murder of Bada Rajan by Dawood Ibrahim’s men in 1986.

Chhota Rajan took over the reins of the gang and forged an alliance with Dawood that lasted until 1993. It was an arrangement of convenience but Rajan soon became a close confidante of Dawood. According to a report of crime chronicler S Husain Zaidi, the friendship started cracking up in 1992 after Dawood’s brother-in-law Ibrahim Parkar was killed in broad daylight by the Arun Gawli gang. Rajan did not retaliate and cracks appeared in the friendship. The serial Bombay bomb blasts of 1993 however, saw a split on religious lines in the gang and a bitter war ensued that continues even to present times. Rajan organised the killings of a majority of those acquitted in the blasts case.

Dawood has since tried to kill Rajan three times without much success. The first was when Chhota Shakeel tried to bump off Rajan at a yatch party in 1993, but he received a tip-off and did not attend. In 1998, he was arrested by the Thai Police but managed to escape from custody. In 2000 he survived an attack in a Bangkok hotel by escaping through the roof. He then made a daring escape from the hospital despite a back injury. He has been hopping continents since then with his place of residence being Australia.

“He came to Bali as he was tipped off about another attempt on his life in Australia. He probably wants to be in the safety of an Indian jail under police surveillance for the rest of his life as he is now old with multiple health problems and the life of a fugitive is not easy,” said an ex-police commissioner of Mumbai who is still in service.

It is said that Rajan operated several dance bars, discotheques, night clubs and casinos in Jakarta, Malaysia and Thailand. There are currently a total of 68 cases against him that range from murder to drug trafficking. He is also said to have ordered the killing of journalist J Dey in Mumbai. But in Mumbai his influence had been waning for a while. The police say that he had just one key figure— Santosh Sawant or Abu Sawant—left to manage the gang and his finances in the city. The underworld, emasculated by encounter killings by policemen, was also a far cry from what it used to be. Dawood expanded, weaving a global crime network. Rajan, despite coming out of his shadow, never quite managed to catch up to Dawood.

Arun GawliChhota RajanDawood IbrahimgangstersMumbai