Chhota Rajan jumps four floors to freedom

BANGKOK, NOVEMBER 24: Underworld gangster Chhota Rajan is a free man once again. The mafia don, who was being held captive in a hospital i...

BANGKOK, NOVEMBER 24: Underworld gangster Chhota Rajan is a free man once again. The mafia don, who was being held captive in a hospital in Bangkok under Thai police custody, reportedly used knotted bed sheets to escape from the room he was being “He used bed sheets to escape from the fourth floor of the hospital this morning,” said police Lieutenant Colonel Worachart Rojchan. Rajan was facing a bid to extradite him to India, where authorities want him to stand trial on 17 counts of murder and other charges. India had revoked Rajan’s passport on the grounds that his travel documents were not in order. The gangster had been under provisional arrest in Bangkok while he was being treated for wounds sustained in an attack on him in September, allegedly by Dawood Ibrahim’s shooters.

Thailand’s acting Metropolitan Police Commander, Major General Jongrak Juthanont, said he had begun an investigation into whether the seven policemen guarding Rajan had been bribed to allow him to slip away. “I have ordered police to try to trace Rajan, find out exactly how he escaped and investigate the seven policemen who were on duty,” he said.

Indian authorities said they had yet to be officially informed about the escape. “As far as we are concerned he is wanted here and we had sent over our police to bring him to justice,” Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, said. Mumbai police sources they were convinced the police assigned to guard Rajan had been paid off. “They are trying to make out that he is some kind of a daredevil, escaping from the fourth floor,” said a senior police official, who declined to be identified. “What must have happened is that Rajan must have bribed the local authorities heavily and walked out of the hospital. Nobody here believes this escape theory.”

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Jongrak said the officers stationed outside Rajan’s hotel suite had reported unusual activity inside the room in the early hours of the morning. When they went to investigate they found the room empty and the sheet tied to the balcony rail. Four policemen stationed on the balcony claimed they had left briefly to buy some food, he said.

Rajan, who reached Bangkok earlier this year after fleeing to Dubai in 1988, is believed to control a crime empire that takes in extortion rackets, drug trafficking and film financing.