The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a charge sheet against jailed underworld don Chhota Rajan in connection with the 1997 gunning down of veteran trade unionist Datta Samant in Mumbai.
Samant (65) had led the Mumbai textile strike in 1982 that crippled the mills of Mumbai – leading to shutting down of several mills and left more than 1.5 lakh workers unemployed.
The CBI filed the charge sheet in a special CBI court in Mumbai against Chhota Rajan accusing him of hatching the conspiracy to murder Samant.
“Yes…charge sheet has been filed against Chhota Rajan in the Datta Samant murder case. The charge sheet runs into three volumes and a set of annexures,” Special Public Prosecutor Pradeep Gharat told DH on Friday.
Samant was killed on January 16, 1997, outside his home in Powai and the gunmen had fired 17 rounds on his head, chest and stomach.
The brutal murder of Samant, popularly known as 'Doctor-saab', but the underworld had shocked Mumbai – and the then Shiv Sena-BJP government led by Dr Manohar Joshi had come under sharp criticism over the law and order situation. BJP leader late Gopinath Munde was the Deputy Chief Minister and in-charge of the Home portfolio.
Chhota Rajan was deported from Indonesia in 2015 and lodged in Tihar Jail in New Delhi. He was convicted in some cases including the gunning down of journalist J Dey, in which was given a life sentence.
(Published 04 December 2020, 11:39 IST)
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