CBI court acquits Chhota Rajan in Datta Samant murder case

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday acquitted gangster Chhota Rajan in a case related to the 1997 murder of trade union leader Datta Samant for want of evidence.

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday acquitted gangster Chhota Rajan in a case related to the 1997 murder of trade union leader Datta Samant for want of evidence.

Special judge B.D. Shelke said there was nothing on record to prove that Rajan, whose real name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, had hatched the conspiracy. 

“The material witnesses have turned hostile. They do not support the case of the prosecution. The testimony of other witnesses is not sufficient to prove the charges against the accused. There is nothing on record to prove that Rajan hatched the conspiracy,” the court said.

Despite the acquittal, the gangster will not be released from jail as he is facing trial in dozens of cases in various cities. In 2018, he was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of the murder of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey in 2011.

Samant, who had organised the 1981 textile mill workers’ strike in Mumbai, was shot dead on January 16, 1997, while travelling in his jeep to his office in Pant Nagar in suburban Ghatkopar. The assailants came on a motorbike and fired 17 rounds at him. The prosecution had claimed that Rajan hatched the murder conspiracy.

In the first phase of the trial, the judgment was pronounced in July 2000, in which Rajan, his trusted aide Rohit Verma, and gangster Guru Satam were shown as absconding accused and their trial was separated.

Rajan, who had been on the run for about two decades, was detained in Bali by the Indonesian police on the basis of an Interpol red notice and deported to India, and arrested in 2015. He is currently lodged at Tihar jail.