Gangster Chhota Rajan was jailed for seven years yesterday for passport fraud, the first prison term handed to the don who had evaded capture for more than 20 years.
Rajan, once India’s most wanted man, had been found guilty in a New Delhi court on Monday of using a fake passport to flee the country in the late 1990s.
Three retired passport officials were also jailed for seven years for helping Rajan acquire the forged document.
“All accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy to do an illegal act by illegal means,” the court said.
“Accused Rajan intentionally and knowingly furnished false information with false address and other particulars whereas in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy.”
The court has also slapped a fine of Rs15,000 on Rajan and former passport officials Jayashree Dattatray Rahate, Deepak Natvarlal Shah and Lalitha Lakshmanan.
The sentence came despite Rajan’s lawyers Anshuman Sinha and Vijay Kumar Pandey telling the court that the passport was given by someone on behalf of the state.
They also said their client was fighting against terrorism and helping the country.
They said Rajan faces a threat to his life from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Rajan sought leniency on the ground that he has undergone bypass surgery and his three daughters are studying.
Shah’s lawyer S P M Tripathi sought leniency for his client saying the 65-year-old is a retired serviceman, his wife is also a retired public servant and they have no child.
He said Shah suffers from various ailments.
The lawyers for Rahate, 65, and Lakshmanan, 64, requested the court to show the leniency due to their old age and the ailments they are suffering from.
Rajan, a feared Mumbai underworld figure, was arrested in late 2015 in Indonesia after more than two decades on the run.
He was extradited to India, where there are nearly 80 criminal cases registered against him.
Rajan is suspected of involvement in dozens of crimes including murder, extortion and drug trafficking.
He dodged police for years even though Interpol flagged him in 1995 as a wanted man.
He was the alleged former right-hand man of Ibrahim, who is suspected of masterminding the 1993 bomb blasts in the city that killed more than 250 people in retaliation for anti-Muslim violence a few months earlier.
Rajan parted with Ibrahim after the attacks, becoming a rival to his former ally.
He was accused of running one of several underworld outfits that had a grip on Mumbai in the 1980s and 1990s until a police crackdown.
Rajan portrayed himself as a “Hindu don” and began targeting those he considered to be “anti-India”, including Ibrahim’s men.