Mumbai Police Commissioner A.N. Roy has ordered an inquiry into the release of a deported member of the Chhota Rajan gang, who was recently acquitted by a court for lack of evidence. Rajkumar Ramdas Sharma alias Raju Chikna, who was deported from the UAE, was let off by a sessions court after key evidence in the form of conversations recorded on five tapes went missing. These were conversations between the accused and the underworld don Rajan regarding the kidnapping and murder of a henchman of the rival Tanya Kohli gang, Ankush Satpute, on December 19, 1991. On the tape, Chikna could be heard taking orders from Rajan. Police ‘‘misplaced’’ five audio cassettes containing conversations of the accused, Chikna, with Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan. The tapes, recorded in 1991, were proof of a plot being hatched to kill a rival gangster. Sessions Judge S.B. Munde acquitted Chikna since the charges levelled against him could not be proved. Rajesh Srivastav, Chikna’s advocate, said his client is a ‘‘Dubai businessman who doesn’t know Dawood or Rajan’’ and was falsely implicated. This was the second such blow to the police in less than a year. Only in September last, another deportee from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Riyaz Siddiqui of the Dawood gang, walked free after Mumbai police failed to file a chargesheet. Then, the case papers went missing mysteriously. Excerpts from the missing tapes
