Following 27 years of being on the lam, Chhota Rajan — or Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, if you prefer — was brought back to India early on Friday morning, and whisked straight to the CBI headquarters.
In anticipation of a massive media presence at the airport, the CBI used a decoy car to ward them off. However, it isn’t this particular decoy that’s raising eyebrows. Instead, it’s the human decoy procured by Indian intelligences agencies to keep Rajan safe.
Reports says that Indian intelligence agencies have spent the past three days searching high and low for a doppelganger to shadow Rajan, and ‘confuse possible attackers’. The lookalike — who shall hereafter be called Doosra Rajan — was reportedly at work from 6 am on Friday, ahead of Rajan’s arrival at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.
Doosra Rajan’s job description includes accompanying the original Rajan wherever he is taken from his detention centre, whether to court or hospital. But, whether or not the humshakal will accompany Rajan if he is taken for a spot of sight-seeing — given his emotional return to a country that he left nearly three decades ago — cannot be confirmed.
What is known is that both Rajans will be taken around wearing similar masks, in similar vehicles, with a similar security detail — the report refers to between 25 and 30 commandoes and cops wielding assault rifles, MP5 sub-machine guns and Glock pistols.
And that’s not all.
Should Rajan require a medical check-up or an extended stay in hospital on account of his reportedly worsening kidney troubles, the report adds that he will be treated by ‘special and verified’ teams of medical staff. Meanwhile, Doosra Rajan will be put up in a different room with an ‘identical set-up’.
According to sources quoted by The Times of India, the need for Doosra Rajan’s deployment isn’t only the threat from gangsters in the employ of one-time associates Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel. In fact, it appears some ‘politically-connected’ people and a handful of ‘law-enforcement personnel’ could also pose a risk to Rajan’s safety.
Which could explain why Rajan is being kept away from Mumbai — a city in which he is alleged to have committed a lion’s share of his crimes. This has naturally not gone down well with the Mumbai Police. A city crime branch official admitted that this move had “demoralised the entire force… (which) was ranked next only to the Scotland Yard police”.