NEW DELHI // Indonesian police have arrested one of India’s most wanted gangsters, sought in more than two dozen murder cases, on the resort island of Bali, ending a two-decade-long international manhunt.
Rajendra Nikalje, widely known as Chhota Rajan, has been on Interpol’s wanted list since 1995 for running a crime syndicate that engaged in extortion, arms smuggling and contract killing.
“We tracked Chhota Rajan’s movements closely and informed the police in Indonesia and Australia,” said Anil Sinha, director of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation.
“Eventually the Indonesian police managed to arrest him. We are making arrangments to bring him to India and pursue all criminal cases against him.”
Police on Bali said they were coordinating with Interpol and Indian authorities, adding it was likely Rajan would be deported to India.
A spokesperson for the Australian federal police said Interpol in Canberra had alerted Indonesian authorities “who apprehended Nikalje at the request of Indian authorities”.
The federal police confirmed last month that Rajan, 55, was living in Australia under another identity. He had been in discussions with Indian authorities, the spokesperson said, but would not provide further details.
Rajan was the alleged former right-hand man of Mumbai crime kingpin Dawood Ibrahim, who is suspected of being behind the 1993 bomb blasts in the city that killed more than 250 people.
He later became Ibrahim’s rival, accused of running one of several underworld outfits that had a grip on India’s financial and entertainment capital in the 1980s and 1990s until a police crackdown.
“It [the arrest] is very, very important because after Dawood’s gang, his was the second most notorious and cruel gang,” former Mumbai police chief P S Pasricha told an Indian TV station.
“People were so scared that they stopped even holding their marriages in Mumbai or purchasing expensive cars because the moment they did, they would get calls from gangsters for extortion.”
Among other crimes, police accused Rajan in 2011 of ordering the murder of a prominent Mumbai crime reporter, who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting the same year.
In 2000, Rajan was wounded by gunmen who burst into a Bangkok apartment and killed his associate in what appeared to be a shooting ordered by Mr Ibrahim.
Because he was facing a bid to extradite him to India, he made a dramatic escape from the Bangkok hospital where he was being treated.
Interpol’s website says Rajan was born in Mumbai, and was wanted for multiple charges including murder and possession and use of illegal firearms.
* Reuters and Agence France-Presse