JOIN USUnderworld don Rajendra Sadashiv Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan was sent in judicial custody to Tihar Jail by a Delhi court on Thursday.
Sources said he will be kept in the high-security ward of Tihar’s jail number two. Since he was brought to Delhi from Indonesia on November 6, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had been interrogating Rajan on his criminal enterprise and a fake passport he had been using during his Australia stay.
“Special Judge O P Saini sent Chhota Rajan to judicial custody till December 3 after the CBI told him the don was not required for further police custody,” sources said.
The court hearing took place at the CBI headquarters under tight security where the don was presented after the expiry of his CBI custody. The CBI was trying to find out how he procured an Indian passport with the help of fake documents from the Indian mission in Zimbabwe.
A CBI official said the probe agency did not require further custody and till now had not received the files of other cases pending against him. He said the CBI was in the process of getting files of 71 other cases lodged against Rajan from Maharashtra Police.
Rajan was arrested in Bali on October 25. He was travelling under the identity of Mohan Kumar when he was apprehended at the airport after arriving on a Garuda Indonesia flight. Before his deportation process was completed, the CBI was directed to register a case against him. The agency booked him for cheating, forgery, and under sections of the Passport Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act.