Chotta Rajan

Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chotta Rajan (Translation: Little Rajan) is the boss of a major crime syndicate based in India. He is a former key aide and lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim. Starting as a petty thief and bootlegger working for Rajan Nair, also known as Bada Rajan (Big Rajan). Chotta Rajan took over the reins of Bada Rajan's gang after Bada Rajan's murder. Later, he was affiliated with and operated at the behest of Dawood in Mumbai and eventually fled India to Dubai in 1988. He is wanted for many criminal cases that include extortion, murder, smuggling, drug trafficking and film finance. His brother is said to produce films financed by Rajan. He is also wanted in 17 murder cases and several more attempted murders.
He parted ways with Dawood Ibrahim after the latter's involvement in the 1993 terrorist attack on innocent civilians in Mumbai. Chotta Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim are now considered be arch-rivals, with a long and bloody feud between their respective crime syndicates.

Education

Chhota Rajan is a m.com.[1]
[edit]Criminal career

This Tilak Nagar (Mumbai) lad began by peddling cinema tickets in black in the 1980s. Then he met mentor Bada Rajan. Once Bada Rajan was killed, Nikalje received the throne and the title—Chhota Rajan. For a short period, Dawood Ibrahim, Rajan and Arun Gawli worked together. Then Gawli’s elder brother Papa Gawli was murdered over a drug deal and a rift formed. Rajan went to Dubai—his family is still here apart from his wife in 1989 to attend the wedding of Noora, Dawood’s brother. He never returned. With the serial blasts flinging a spanner into the works, Dawood and Rajan fell out. There were even reports that he tipped off the Research and Analysis Wing about Dawood’s network. The Dawood-Rajan party was over, the messy end coming in September 2000, with Shakeel’s attack on Rajan in his Bangkok hotel room.[2]
[edit]Split with Dawood

Rajan parted ways with Dawood Ibrahim, after the 1993 Mumbai bombings, blaming him for anti Hindu and anti national acts. It is speculated that religious differences between the two - Rajan is a Hindu and Dawood, a Muslim - contributed to the split. The break up between him and Ibrahim supposedly took place after Dawood's involvement in the 1993 bomb blast came into the spotlight and Dawood became the most wanted man in India. After the split, Rajan formed his own gang. Reports of bloody shootouts between Rajan and Dawood's hoodlums have been common since the split. In 1994, Rajan lured one of Dawood's favorites - the flamboyantly charming, yet dreaded young Pathan "narco-terrorist" Phillu Khan alias Bakhtiyar Ahmed Khan- to a hotel room in Bangkok, where he was tortured to death having being betrayed by his closest aide and sidekick Mangesh "Mangya" Pawar.
Both Phillu and Mangya were involved in the 1993 blasts as Police had filed cases on 15 March 1993 [3] alleging their involvement in the blasts.
[edit]Assassination Attempt

In September 2001, Dawood tracked down Rajan in Bangkok. Sharad Shetty, used his links with Mumbai based hotelier Vinod Shetty to track down Rajan in Bangkok,[4] Dawood's aide Chotta Shakeel then led the hit. Posing as pizza delivery men they gunned down trusted Rajan hitman Rohit Varma and his wife.[4] However their aim of killing Rajan failed, with Rajan making a dare-devil escape through the hotel's roof and fire-escape. He then recovered in the hospital and slipped away to evade capture.[citation needed]
Dawood Ibrahim confirmed the attack on telephone to rediff.com, saying Rajan tried to escape by jumping out of the window of the first-floor room where he was attacked. He, however, broke his back in the fall and was taken to hospital, the don said.
[edit]Rajan Strikes Back

This failed assassination attempt proved costly for Dawood. Chotta Rajan's associates tracked down and shot dead Vinod Shetty in 2001 in Mumbai, as well as Sunil Soans - another Dawood associate. Both Vinod and Sunil had provided information to Dawood's associates of Rajan's whereabouts.[4]
While the killings of Vinod Shetty and Sunil Soans did not significantly disrupt D-Company, on January 19, 2003, Chotta Rajan's associates then gunned down Sharad Shetty - Dawood's chief finance manager and money-laundering agent - at the India Club in Dubai.[4] This brazen killing was an emblematic of the shift of power between Dawood and Rajan. Not only was the execution in a very public setting, it was at a location that Dawood considered his operational backyard. Intelligence reports have suggested that Sharad Shetty's death was a crippling blow to D-Company, since much financial and monetary information of the crime syndicate operations managed by Sharad Shetty was never fully recovered by Dawood.[4]
While the Indian government has no overt links to Rajan, the Intelligence Bureau, India's internal intelligence agency is suspected of having passed information they collected of Dawood's operations to Chotta Rajan when they've found so to be convenient to weaken Dawood. Chotta Rajan claims himself to be a staunch Indian, while Dawood's activities post 1993 have been anti-Indian.