Indian 'Don' Chhota Rajan, Eight Others Get Life Imprisonment for killing journalist
"The special court here today handed over life imprisonment to nine people including gangster Chhota Rajan in the killing of senior journalist that took place some seven years before," an official said. "The court, however, acquitted former journalist Jigna Vora, who was charged with instigating Rajan to carry out the killing in 2011."
Vora broke down in the court soon after her acquittal was announced by the judge.
The 56-year-old Dey was shot by two motorcycle-borne men on June 11, 2011, in suburban Powai when he was returning home. He worked as a senior editor for the Mumbai based local daily Mid Day.
Rajan, who was witnessing proceedings from New Delhi’s Tihar jail via video conferencing, said “theek hai (alright)”, when the judge read out the sentence and asked the gangster if he wanted to say anything.
This is the first major conviction for Rajan since he was deported to India following his arrest at Bali airport in Indonesia in 2015.
Earlier last year, Rajan was convicted by a court in Delhi and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in a case of fake passports.
Capture
On 25 October 2015, Rajan was captured in Bali, Indonesia where Indian authorities contacted Interpol for deporting him back to India. The capture took place due to a tip-off by Australian police stating that Rajan had traveled to Bali with an Indian passport by the name Mohan Kumar.
According to CBI sources, the underworld don was standing in a queue at the airport when the immigration authorities asked him to step aside and reveal his name. To this, the gangster first gave his original name Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, and then immediately corrected himself to say, Mohan Kumar, the name mentioned on his passport.
This alerted the authorities and they started questioning him. The authorities then started the identification process with the help of fingerprint tests. 11 out of 18 points of fingerprint samples given in the Red Corner notice matched with his samples, confirming that he was Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje.
Rajan was extradited to India on 6 November and is currently in Tihar Jail, as he is involved in almost 70 cases.
Courtesy: The Wire, Xinhua, Indian media
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