Indonesia to deport Chhota Rajan to India

Rajendra Nikalje, widely known as Chhota Rajan, was arrested by police on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali last week, ending a two-decade-long international manhunt.

Rajan has been on Interpol’s wanted list since 1995 suspected of running a crime syndicate that engaged in extortion, arms struggling and contract killing.

“There are no administrative problems now. We have prepared everything (for his deportation),” Bali police spokesman Hery Wiyanto said, adding he would be flown back to India late on Tuesday.

Rajan, 55, had been living incognito in Australia, but fearing his enemies would find him, was able to fly to Bali where he was arrested without resistance, according to news reports.

India’s national security adviser devised a plan to secure the arrest of Rajan as part of a strategy to hunt down India’s most-wanted man, Dawood Ibrahim, Indian police and ministry sources told Reuters. The two are believed to have worked together.

Ibrahim is accused of masterminding a dozen bombings and grenade attacks in Mumbai in March 1993, killing 257 people and wounding more than 700 in the deadliest such attack in the nation’s history.