AIIMS, Delhi Police refute reports of Chhota Rajan’s death due to COVD-19

Chhota Rajan, 61, was earlier lodged in the high-security Tihar prison in New Delhi. (PTI)

After several reports suggested that underworld don Rajendra Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan, who tested positive for Covid-19 and is under treatment in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi, has succumbed to the disease, the Delhi Police and AIIMS officials termed the reports false. According to reports, the gangster is still under treatment in the hospital. He was admitted to the hospital in the last week of April.

Underworld don Chhota Rajan is still alive. He is admitted at AIIMS for treatment of #COVID19: AIIMS official

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— ANI (@ANI) May 7, 2021

Chhota Rajan, 61, was lodged in Tihar jail since he was arrested in 2015 after deportation from Bali.

His COVID-19 infection became public on April 27 when an officer of the Tihar prison telephonically informed the sessions court about their inability to produce Rajan via video conference before the judge as the gangster had tested positive for Covid-19 and was admitted to the AIIMS.

Notably, all the criminal cases registered against him in Mumbai were transferred to the CBI and a Delhi-based special court was constituted to try him in the cases.

Chhota Rajan is facing around 70 criminal cases pertaining to extortion and murder in Mumbai.

He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 in a murder case of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey. Last month, a special CBI court in Mumbai had acquitted Rajan and his aide in connection with the murder of Hanif Kadawala who was an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case.

Chhota Rajan was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail on March 16 this year in the case of attempt to murder of a Mumbai-based builder in 2013. Rajan and six of his gang members including Rohit Joseph alias Satish Kaliya and shooter Prakash Nikam were also found guilty under various sections of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.

In January this year, he was convicted in connection with an extortion case by a special court and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act and the IPC under charges of extortion and criminal conspiracy.