Efforts to get gangster Chhota Rajan’s key lieutenant Santosh Mahadev Sawant alias Abu Sawant extradited have been stuck in red tape since 2015. This thanks to the extradition file going back and forth between the government and the CBI, which was handed over the case as early as on November 13, 2015, by the Detection Crime Branch (DCB), CID, Mumbai, following the deportation of Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan to India.
The Union Home Ministry has now urged the agencies to speed up the proceedings to bring back the Singapore-based gangster, whose interrogation is crucial to unravelling Rajan’s extortion racket in Mumbai, and the betting businesses overseas, as per Ministry documents accessed by The Hindu.
As per the documents, a Red Notice (A-1070) was issued against Sawant way back in 2012. It was subsequently published in the Crime Records (CR) of the DCB, CID, Mumbai (150/2005 and 04/2000).
The proceedings picked some pace after Rajan was deported in October, 2015, and the extradition process was transferred to the CBI.
It forwarded the case to its Mumbai unit on April 7, 2016, by which time Unit-6 of the DCB, CID, had forwarded all documentation to the CBI, official records show.
“As per the existing reports, I request you to correspond with the Joint Director, CBI, Mumbai, in connection to all process of extradition against Abu Sawant in the near future,” Joint Commissioner of Police (crime), Ashotush Dumbare, wrote on February 26, 2019 in response to two reminders he received from the Home Ministry in 2018, which was confused over which agency was handling the proceedings.
The first of the two reminders on the slow process was sent by the Home Ministry on December 7, 2018 along with a letter from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) requesting to speed up the proceedings.
“The file has since been going back and forth to Legal Cell of Ministry of Home Affairs and the Interpol branch of the CBI,” said a source who did not wish to be identified.
Sawant’s extradition and interrogation was crucial to building a foolproof case, said a top police officer.
Abu Sawant was the mastermind behind Rajan’s extortion businesses in Mumbai’s real estate market. This ill-gotten money from the builders and developers was pumped into M/s. Khushi Construction, a front used by the gang to launder money abroad into its overseas businesses. Sawant, an astute financial brain, sources said, used the money to expand Rajan’s betting businesses in Bangkok, Jakarta and Singapore. The money was also used to acquire pubs and discotheques from where the betting syndicate would reach out to a global clientele, officials said. “The extradition and interrogation of Sawant is important to understand what business model was used by Rajan as opposed to other gangs. It is vital to building a foolproof case for the government,” said a top cop.