Following 27 years of being on the lam, underworld don Chhota Rajan, whose real name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, was was brought back to India early on Friday morning and whisked straight to the CBI headquarters. Rajan is accused in over 75 crimes ranging from murder, extortion to smuggling and drug trafficking. Mumbai Police has nearly 70 cases registered against Rajan, including 20 of murder cases, four cases under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities, one under Prevention of Terrorism Act and over 20 cases under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act.

Having taken over all the cases pending against the gangster, the CBI is soon expected to seek his formal custody for interrogation.

Sometime between 2006 and 2007, a ‘bhai’ from Dubai called up a Hyderabad-based builder, who had just then purchased a swanky BMW in Mumbai where he also had business interests. Initially, the builder mistook it for a prank. But days later, when the caller began giving minute details of the day-to-day schedule of his son and other family members, he got scared. Finally, one morning, when he woke up, he found the windscreen of his BMW smashed to pieces. Minutes later, the phone rang. “At least now, do you realise the seriousness of my calls? Keep the money ready,” the anonymous caller warned.

Was this call from a most wanted gangster, Dawood Ibrahim, or was it from the Chhota Rajan gang? With Chhota Rajan in CBI custody in Delhi, the Telangana police are now gearing up to grill the don to learn about his Hyderabad operations. As the other central agencies are currently grilling him, the TS police have decided to send a team to question the ‘bhai’ as this will help in knowing two things: 1) Dawood Ibrahim’s activities in Hyderabad and 2) Rajan’s operations here.

Then the builder chose not to lodge a police complaint, but, shared the matter with some officials in the police department. He subsequently kept getting more calls demanding crores of rupees, but once alerted, the police officials monitored the calls. Through unofficial channels, the police also got in touch with the Mumbai police and it was then learnt that the calls were either from the D gang or Chhota Rajan gang, who were trying to extort money from the Hyderabadi as part of efforts to create a base in the city. Interestingly, this was around the same time that Aziz Reddy alias Kakulavarapu Venkat Reddy was trying to create his base.

Aziz, who was shot dead in an encounter in Jubilee Hills in May 2008, was a close aide of Rajan and had established the ‘B Company’ here with the sole purpose of extorting from industrialists and businessmen, including those from the film industry. Stating that the Mumbai underworld’s links with Hyderabad have always been there, sources said back then, there were also disclosures by some arrested ‘bhais’ in Mumbai and UP that a few had been hired by the Rajan gang for the sole purpose of identifying soft targets. The gang had hired two persons on monthly salary for passing on information about soft targets.