Underworld don Chhota Rajan dies of Covid in AIIMS

NEW DELHI: Underworld don Rajendra Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan, who tested positive for Covid-19 and was admitted at AIIMS on April 26, died on Friday.

Rajan, 61, was lodged in the high security Tihar prison in New Delhi since his arrest after deportation from Bali, Indonesia, in 2015.

All the criminal cases pending against him in Mumbai were transferred to the CBI and a special court was constituted to try them.

An assistant jailor of the Tihar jail telephonically had informed the sessions court that they could not produce Rajan via video conference before the judge for hearing in a case as the gangster had tested positive for Covid-19 and admitted to AIIMS.

Rajan was facing as many as 70 criminal cases pertaining to extortion and murder in Mumbai.

In 2018, Rajan was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2011 murder case of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey.

The special CBI court in Mumbai acquitted Rajan and his aide in connection with the murder of Hanif Kadawala, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case, last week.