Hours before deadline, Mumbai police team leaves for Bangkok

The Ministry of External Affairs said today that in the absence of a extradition treaty with Thailand, it was acting as a “facilitator” with the MHA, which was coordinating action to bring back Chhota Rajan from Bangkok.

The Thai authorities are believed to have given the Indian government time till 9 am on Thursday morning to claim Rajan, failing which Rajan could be allowed to leave that country. MEA officials said the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary were constantly in touch with each other.

The Home Ministry, while passing on Mumbai police’s request to go to Bangkok to the MEA, maintains that for the moment its job is done. “The MEA being the nodal agency for all matters pertaining to interactions with other countries, we really cannot do much,” the officials maintain.

“That absence of an extradition treaty” held an official, “will also dispense with technicalities that usually delay the extradition of a wanted man. It will be all the more easier for the Government to get him back, if at all it wants him back.”

Sources in the Maharashtra government said that M.B. Kaushal, special secretary in the Home Ministry, called up M.R. Patil, the state home secretary last Saturday, directing him not to send the team to Bangkok as planned. The cancellation came at the last moment, after all the arrangements had been finalised.

Earlier the Home Ministry had given the go-ahead for a team of three comprising an assistant commissioner of police and two inspectors to go to Thailand and seek the extradition of Rajan. In fact, Police Commissioner M.N. Singh had gone to New Delhi to get the clearance.

When contacted, Home Minister Chhagan Bhujbal told The Indian Express: “We were ready to send a team. All of a sudden, it was stopped by the Home Ministry. We don’t know why. We were going to request the court in Thailand, through our mission in Bangkok, to allow us to bring Chhota Rajan back with us as he is wanted in many murder cases.”

Bhujbal said that there were enough indications that the Thai police might hand over Rajan to the Indian team for interrogation. “Our information was that the Thai police had said that they would have to let Rajan go if the Indian Government did not get in touch with them by Thursday. He was held by the Thai police for illegal entry into the country and since he had paid a penalty, he could be allowed to go. We informed the CBI about this. Now it is up to them,” Bhujbal said.

Observers in New Delhi, though agreeing that there was more to the Rajan matter than what met the eye, pointed out that the North Block is worried about how to arrange a fool-proof security for the wounded gangster. Mumbai may not be the safe place for him, they argue, since most of Dawood Ibrahim’s henchmen — Chhota Shakil being the most prominent — have more or less “regained their lost glory” and are back in business.