Chhota Rajan, the most-wanted gangster arrested in Bali after a two-decade chase, may have planned to escape to Zimbabwe, his interrogation has revealed.
Police Commissioner Reinhard Nainggolan said: “He asked us to release him as he wanted to go to Zimbabwe. He said that he lived in Australia and before that in Zimbabwe and wanted to go there. He was looking to escape.”
Rajan, kept at a local police station away from the media, is very nervous, the officer said. “He is looking scared. He keeps smoking constantly. He said he didn’t want to go to India as his wife and father had died.”
Rajan’s wife Sujata Nikalje, however, is alive. He has also been found to be medically fit, which contradicts speculation that one reason the gangster wanted to return to India was because of his liver and kidney problems. “We have conducted medical check-ups and the reports were all clear. He has no health problems and he hasn’t told us too,” Mr Nainggolan said. The 55-year-old crime boss, wanted in India for at least 17 murders and cases of arms smuggling, drug trafficking and extortion, was arrested on Sunday as he stepped off a flight from Sydney. The police say that seven of their officers and five from immigration went up to Rajan and arrested him after his details matched with a 20-year-old Interpol red corner notice.
“In Australia, a red corner notice is not sufficient to arrest a person. But under Indonesian laws we can. Now within 20 days we will have to deport him back to India,” Mr Nainggolan said. The Bali police had been tipped off by Australia about a murder convict traveling on an Indian passport and using the name “Mohan Kumar”. Rajan’s actual name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje. The police commissioner found Rajan’s claim of a holiday in Bali suspicious, given the Interpol notice and the threat to his life from his boss turned arch rival, terrorist Dawood Ibrahim. “As a detective, I don’t believe he was here for a holiday,” he said.
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