Underworld don Chhota Rajan sent to CBI custody

NEW Delhi: Underworld don Chhota Rajan was today sent to CBI custody by a court here, a day after he was brought from Indonesian city of Bali.

Deported after being on the run for 27 years, the 55-year-old gangster, whose real name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, was remanded in CBI custody by a magistrate who conducted the proceedings at the CBI headquarters in view of security reasons.

"CBI has got the custody of Rajan in one of the cases against him," a CBI spokesperson said without elaborating.

Rajan, once a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim, has been brought to the country to face trial in over 70 cases of murder, extortion and drug smuggling in Delhi and Mumbai.

Yesterday, he was taken straight to the CBI headquarters where he was subjected to a preliminary round of questioning.

After his arrest in Bali on October 25, India had pressed for his early deportation, which, however, got delayed due to closure of Bali's international airport due to spewing of volcanic ash from a nearby mountain.

Upon his arrival here, he was taken into preventive custody of Interpol division of the CBI till the central probe agency completes legal formalities for registering a case of allegedly procuring fake passport and takes over the cases handed over by Maharashtra government.

Earlier, the spokesperson had said that Rajan was medically fit and required no dialysis.