‘His voice was not threatening’: Journalist Harinder Baweja on interviewing Chhota Rajan in Malaysia

Chhota Rajan alias Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, another underworld kingpin, had risen quickly from being a bootlegger and a muscleman providing cover for shady financial land deals to becoming a close aide of Dawood. Claiming to be upset over the serial bombings in Bombay, Rajan distanced himself from his mentor, calling him a traitor. Dawood had taken shelter in Pakistan, where he has been well looked after by his ISI masters, but the question in 1993 was, where exactly is Rajan? How was he so successful in using his henchmen to still wield influence in Bombay?

Rajan had billed Dawood a traitor and was not going to let him go gently into the night. On November 13, 1995, Thakiyudeen Abdul Wahid, the managing director of East West Airlines, was on his way home in Bombay, when he was brutally shot dead. A close lieutenant of Rajan, it was later revealed, had pumped 30 bullets into Wahid. The managing director paid with his life because Rajan believed that Dawood had invested money in the airline. The answer to the question of where Rajan was operating from, came in the form of a phone call, a few months after Wahid’s killing.

One morning, in early 1996, the...

Read more