Karnataka Police arrests wanted Chhota Rajan gang member from Mumbai
On a tip-off, the Mangaluru police headed to Mumbai and found that the accused had changed his identity and was working as a vegetable vendor in Andheri.
A special court in Mumbai sentenced gangster Chhota Rajan and seven others to jail for life in the journalist J Dey murder case.
Earlier in the morning, Rajendra S Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan and seven others were held guilty of killing journalist Jyotirmoy Dey in 2011.
Another high-profile accused in the case, former Mumbai journalist Jigna Vora, was acquitted by the court.
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Nine out of the total 11 accused in the case were found guilty by the court.
A special MCOCA court in Mumbai had on 3 April reserved May 2 for the judgment.
Chhota Rajan is currently lodged in Tihar Central Jail in New Delhi.
According to investigators, Chhota Rajan ordered the killing of Dey, a veteran crime reporter of Mumbai.
The mafia don was deported from Indonesia’s Bali in November 2015 and subsequently made an accused in the case. Dey, 56, was the editor (Investigations) of Midday eveninger, and was shot dead on 11 June, 2011, near his Powai residence in central suburban Mumbai, sending shockwaves in the media circles across the country.
The CBI court framed charges against Chhota Rajan in the case in 2016.
According to a supplementary charge sheet by the CBI, Rajan had Dey killed because he was miffed with some articles written by him, and also because a planned book of his portrayed Rajan as a chindi (petty) criminal.
There was a major twist in the case when police arrested Vora, then Deputy Bureau Chief of The Asian Age, Mumbai, on 25 November, 2011, besides 10 others. It emerged during the probe that Vora was allegedly in regular contact with Chhota Rajan and provoked him to eliminate Dey.
One of the accused, Vinod Asrani alias Vinod Chembur, who was allegedly the main co-conspirator and financier of the entire operation, died of natural causes in April 2015. He had “pointed out” Dey to the gunmen that morning.
(With agency inputs)
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