From selling cinema tickets in black, becoming a petty thug and bootlegger in the lower-middle class locality of Tilak Nagar in north-central Mumbai, learning ropes of crime under a local don Rajan Nair alias Bada Rajan in the early eighties and being in and out of D-company, Rajendra Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan has come a long way in the world of organised crime.
After being the trusted aide of Dawood Ibrahim till the early nineties, he snapped links with the underworld don and set up crime syndicates-Algeria and south-East Asia. With his reported arrest in Bali on Monday, his 27-year-long self-imposed exile from India has ended.
All along on the run since 1988 when the scene in the Mumbai underworld became hot after the killing of underworld gangster Arun Gawli’s close aide Ashok Joshi, Chhota Rajan has had two attempts on his life – in November 1992 when gangster Dawood and Sharad Shetty teamed up and tried unsuccessfully bump him off and once again in September 2000 when he survived an attack engineered on him by Dawood’s aide Chhota Shakeel on him in September.
Unlike Dawood who has lived most his “life-in-exile” in Pakistan, Chhota Rajan has all along been on the move. Though it has been speculated widely in the media that Chhota Rajan parted ways with Dawood after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, informed intelligence sources say that relations between him and the Karachi-based don had strained to such an extent that Dawood, along with Sharad Shetty, had conspired to take him on boat trip off Dubai in November 1992, four months before the Mumbai blasts. However, the conspiracy did not materialise.
After snapping his ties with Dawood, Chhota Rajan took shelter in South Africa, where he teamed up with local drug mafia don Vicky Patel. It was in South Africa, Chhota Rajan went headlong into the synthetic drug smuggling. The subsequent years took him to many places, including the ones like Nepal and south-east Asian countries like Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand.
However, after an attempt on his life in September 2000 and brief visits to Australia and far-eastern where things became very hot for him around May 2001, Chhota Rajan – who was by now drug-trafficker-cum- silicon smuggler-cum-money-launderer – shifted his base to Algeria.
The reason behind his shifting his base to Algeria is the fact that the country --sandwiched between Mediterranean region and Central Africa -- provides a powerful entry and exit point for trading with European nations. He has since been to and operated from many countries under fake passports.
Fifty-five-year-old Chhota Rajan is wanted by various Indian agencies including the Mumbai Police, for several incidents of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and land-grabbing, during the last two and half decades.
Excepting in the latest alleged involvement in the Journalist J Dey’s murder in which it can nail him for ordering the killing, informed sources in the Mumbai police said that they do not much of material to prove his role in the crimes that he is allegedly involved in. It may be recalled that 56-year-old Dey, who was an Editor (Special Investigations) with “Mid-Day”, was gunned down by a group of motorbike-riding gangsters at Powai in north-east Mumbai on June 11, 2011, allegedly at the behest of Chhota Rajan.
A look at his growth in the Mumbai underworld, Chhota Rajan not only succeeded local don Rajan Nair alias Bada Rajan but acquired the “chhota Rajan” sobriquet from the latter in mid- eighties.
After being with Bada Rajan, he also came in contact with another underworld don Vardarajan Mudaliar alias Vardha Bhai, a period that helped him expand his operations by joining the bootlegging network.