NEW DELHI: Chhota Rajan, the underworld don whose real name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, was admitted to AIIMS for a minor surgical procedure, prison officials said on Friday.
The operation, involving a minor nose surgery, was advised by medical professionals, and Rajan is expected to return to Tihar Jail post-recovery. “He was admitted in the hospital on Thursday and as per operation procedure he was kept under observation by the doctors.
He will be brought back to prison, once doctors do his operation and give a go ahead to take him back,” said a senior prison official. The gangster, who was once a close associate of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim, has been under tight security since his extradition from Indonesia in 2015 after spending nearly three decades evading authorities. He was arrested in Bali by Indonesian police and brought back to India to face numerous charges.
In a significant legal development last year, a special Mumbai court sentenced Rajan to life imprisonment for the 2001 murder of hotelier Jaya Shetty, who owned the Golden Crown Hotel in Mumbai. This sentence came in addition to a previous life term handed down for the murder of journalist J Dey in 2011.
As Rajan recuperates in the hospital, he is being closely monitored in a private ward.