Amid the headlines of Chhota Rajan's surrender, it is pertinent to understand the relevance - or rather irrelevance - of what is being described as a major achievement by our agencies. Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home, has said the 55-year-old was arrested in Indonesia. That hasn't stopped reports that the underworld don orchestrated a carefully-negotiated settlement.
But first, an anecdote from 2010 which might shed light on the relationship between the ''patriotic don'' (owing to his taking on Dawood Ibrahim after the carnage of the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, and his splitting from Dawood's gang) and our intelligence agencies. Newspapers have carried interviews in the past with Rajan calling himself a
deshbhakt (patriot) who is on an alleged mission to fight the enemies of the country. About two months ago, RK Singh, now a BJP MP and former Home Secretary
told a news channel that Dawood Ibrahim could have been arrested way back in 2005 had it not been for the Mumbai police, which foiled the plan of the Intelligence Bureau led by AK Doval, the current National Security Advisor.
The fact that Doval was intercepted in Delhi by officers of Mumbai police in 2005 along with two sharp shooters of the Chhota Rajan gang is well-known and documented, and emerged again in August 2015 after Singh, in an interview to the India Today group, lashed out at what he billed as certain corrupt elements in the Mumbai police who did not want Doval to succeed as they themselves were allegedly involved in corrupt deals with Dawood. The two sharp shooters were Farid Tanasha and Vicky Malhotra known to be Rajan's closest aides who almost grew up with him in the Tilak Nagar area of Mumbai.
In 2009, I was working on a four-month-long investigation of the draconian terror law MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act) and its misuse in Maharashtra. We were profiling various accused who were arrested under the act, one of them being
Farid Tanasha. I first met Tanasha at the sessions court in Mumbai where he had been summoned for a hearing in one of the murder cases against him. Tanasha was escorted by policemen and sat next to me while he introduced me to journalist Jigna Vora who had also come to meet him. Interestingly, Jigna Vora was arrested in 2011 for providing inputs to the Chhota Rajan gang members in the murder of prominent investigative journalist J Dey. A rather friendly Tanasha asked me to use his interview in the series that was to be published later that year. One of the interviews was done at Tanasha's residence at Tilak Nagar along with my colleague where he introduced us to his family and his men.
Tanasha, who was on bail, spoke to us about his alleged proximity with intelligence agencies and how and how the Intelligence Bureau (IB) was left hugely embarrassed when one of its senior officers was discovered with Vicky Malhotra and Tanasha when they were arrested in Delhi by a team of the Mumbai Crime Branch. News reports had emerged that in 2005, Doval, with Malhotra and Tanasha, had planned a strike on Dawood at his daughter's wedding reception in Dubai.
Doval had by then retired as IB head and had allegedly made a covert plan with both Tanasha and Vicky before they were intercepted by the Mumbai police. According to a report by
The Hindu, "On July 11, the Mumbai police arrested Malhotra while he was driving through central Delhi. Accompanying Malhotra was Ajit Kumar Doval, former head of the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB). Doval was allowed to go free, whereas Malhotra and two associates who were picked up later were taken to Mumbai where they now face criminal charges. Doval himself as well as GOI officials from the Home Ministry later declined to comment about the incident."
A few months later, in 2010, I met Farid again, this time for a book I intended to write on the underworld. Most
bhais as gangsters are referred to in Mumbai slang love displaying their power. Farid wanted to show me how popular he was. ''Even
saheb (since Tanasha is no more, the name of the official is being withheld) supports me in my work,'' he said, naming a very senior Intelligence Bureau official who is now back in the dispensation. When I laughed, he dialed the number of the official stored on his phone and put the phone on speaker. The official picked up. "Jai Hind, sir" said Farid, "Jai Hind'' came the response, and a short conversation followed. Tanasha told me that the Mumbai police should have been thankful to him for he was only helping the country in various operations.
I met Tanasha again after the assassination of human rights lawyer and activist Shahid Azmi allegedly at the hands of a breakaway faction of the Chhota Rajan gang headed by a gangster called Bharat Nepali. While the motive was not known, Tanasha insisted that it was the work of Chhota Rajan, who would use the likes of Bharat Nepali to gun down people on his hit list. Tanasha himself was bumped off in July 2010 by the same Bharat Nepali, according to the Mumbai police, which could not explain a motive but suggested that there was an interpersonal rivalry at work and that Rajan could have wanted Tanasha dead. An
NDTV report said "Forensic reports also indicate that the two gunmen fired from 7.65 caliber pistols, which was allegedly the same weapon used by Devendra Jagtap in the murder of advocate Shahid Azmi on February 11. Incidentally, Tanasha and Nepali were members of the gang that went to Pakistan to target Dawood Ibrahim in the past. Nepali's role in the murder assumes significance in light of the fact that Tanasha smiled at one of the shooters."
The very next year, in 2011, senior crime journalist J Dey, and investigative reporter with Mid-Day, was murdered by Chhota Rajan and his men who were allegedly unhappy with his reports on them. Dey, who was 56, was shot dead by two men on motorcycles on June 11 and within days of his murder, the Mumbai police named Chhota Rajan as the accused but again remained silent on the motive. The Mumbai police then arrested journalist Jigna Vora on frivolous charges of providing information on J Dey to the Chhota Rajan gang; she was granted bail after women's rights groups slammed the investigation for flimsy evidence.
Former Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police D Sivanandan has asked that Rajan be brought to Mumbai for trial and that Dawood Ibrahim should meet a similar fate. Despite being declared a terrorist, most of the offences registered against Rajan are of cases registered in Mumbai courts where he has been declared an absconder.
That brings us to the claim of our Home Department and security agencies that Rajan's arrest is a big achievement even as officials indicate he has been in constant touch with the Intelligence Bureau and helped them with information on Dawood and other activities in the underworld on a per need basis. Innumerable reports have been published in the last two decades of the IB covertly using Chhota Rajan for its various operations. At a time when all efforts to bring Dawood back to India have proved futile, bringing back a fugitive, allegedly on his own terms for his treatment (the government has denied this), especially when he had been an informer/operator of our IB counts as a victory? Perhaps it will be a victory when the Mumbai Police will be given a free hand to interrogate him and try him for the murders of journalists and activists in Mumbai and elicit the motives for the same. It will be a victory if there is no power tussle between central agencies and Mumbai police over the handling of Chhota Rajan which has been witnessed in the past. One of the most contentious issues when it comes to the handling of cases pertaining to the underworld has been the cold war between our central agencies and the Mumbai Police.
If Chhota Rajan is indeed brought back to India, then both teams will need to work together to uncover crucial information from the former right hand of Dawood Ibrahim. If Rajan is confined in custody without any progress in investigation and a strict sentencing, it would be just another gangster operating out of jail while undergoing treatment as suggested by Sivanandan.
That would make sure this turns out to be another damp squib.
(Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which will be published later this year.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.