NSA Doval devised plan to arrest Chhota Rajan, Dawood hunt in works | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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NSA Doval devised plan to arrest Chhota Rajan, Dawood hunt in works

Reuters | By, New Delhi
Oct 27, 2015 07:33 PM IST

Police and home ministry sources have said that national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval devised a plan to secure Chhota Rajan’s arrest in Indonesia as

Police and home ministry sources have said that national security adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval devised a plan to secure Chhota Rajan’s arrest in Indonesia as a part of a strategy to hunt down country’s most-wanted man, Dawood Ibrahim.

A file photo of gangster Chhota Rajan. He was caught by Indonesian police in Bali on Sunday.(PTI)
A file photo of gangster Chhota Rajan. He was caught by Indonesian police in Bali on Sunday.(PTI)

Doval, who is reputed to have handled Rajendra Nikalje - also known as Chhota Rajan - as a security asset in the past, wants to bring him in from the cold to help target Ibrahim who is reportedly living in Pakistan.

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Ibrahim has been accused of masterminding a dozen bombings and grenade attacks in Mumbai in March 1993, killing 257 people and wounding more than 700 in the deadliest such attack in the nation’s history.

“The government is committed to bringing back Dawood and we will deploy every strategy to deport him,” Kiren Rijiju, junior home minister, told reporters on Tuesday after Rajan was held a day earlier on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Read | Chhota Rajan vs Dawood: Mumbai underworld’s bloodiest fight

Doval, 70, a decorated former police and intelligence officer with a track record of daring counter-insurgency missions, has exceptional influence in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inner circle.

He has claimed effective control over foreign policy towards country’s neighbours, sources say, sidelining a diplomatic establishment that has been left to manage ties with strategic partners such as the United States.

With the division of labour comes a cloak-and-dagger approach and a fixation with settling scores that could have regional security implications. India hanged one of the Mumbai bombers, Yakub Memon, in July, 22 years after the attacks.

Officials in the home ministry and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), speaking on condition of anonymity, said Doval had played a key role in orchestrating the arrest of Rajan.

Read | Chhota Rajan: Scheming, ambitious, calculating underworld don

Rajan and Ibrahim once worked together carrying out murders, extortion and smuggling weapons in Ibrahim’s organisation, known as D-Company.

The pair fell out over Ibrahim’s alleged involvement in the Mumbai blasts and then fought a bloody battle for control of Mumbai underworld.

India and the United States accuse Dawood of financing Islamist militant groups, including al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba. The US treasury has frozen his assets, and accuses him of drug running to Europe.

Indian authorities say they have shared evidence of Ibrahim’s whereabouts with Pakistan, which rejects suggestions that he is living there.

Gangster Chhota Rajan was caught by Indonesian police in Bali on Sunday. (PTI)
Gangster Chhota Rajan was caught by Indonesian police in Bali on Sunday. (PTI)

Smile please

Indonesian police released a photo of the diminutive Rajan - his nickname means “little” - dressed in a white polo shirt, smiling at the camera and guarded by a single officer.

Rajan, 55, had been living incognito in Australia but, fearing his enemies would find him and kill him, was able to fly to Bali where he was arrested without putting up resistance, according to news reports.

Doval was involved along with two of Rajan’s men in a botched operation in 2005 to assassinate Ibrahim at his daughter’s wedding in Dubai, former home secretary RK Singh told a television channel in August.

Doval has previously denied the incident and said he was watching television at his home. He did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Ibrahim’s gang allegedly wounded Rajan in an assassination attempt at a Bangkok hotel in 2000. After being treated at a hospital, Rajan escaped using a rope made of bedsheets.

Atul Chandra Kulkarni, Mumbai’s joint commissioner of police, told Reuters Rajan’s men kept a close watch on Ibrahim and his associates. The arrest could yield new intelligence that may help pressure Pakistan to deport Ibrahim, he added.

MN Singh, Mumbai’s joint commissioner of police at the time of the 1993 blasts, agreed that Rajan’s arrest was a coup for India.

“But I am not sure if an old, ailing and retired gangster would be our best bet to drag Dawood Ibrahim out of Pakistan,” he said.

Read | Chhota Rajan’s extradition could spark violence in Mumbai underworld

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