Santosh Shetty claims he saved Chhota Rajan from jaws of death, deportation

Underworld don Chhota Rajan and gangster Santosh Shetty may have been at loggerheads since their split in 2004, but if Shetty is to be believed, Rajan owes him plenty.

As per Shetty’s claims, he has saved Rajan on at least two occasions — once from near death in 2000 when he was attacked by the Chhota Shakeel gang in Bangkok and the other was when he was detained in Singapore and Shetty got him freed before the authorities could deport him to India.

According to a statement given by Shetty to the Mumbai police, in 2002, Rajan was travelling from Singapore to London on a fake UK passport. When Rajan reached Heathrow airport, UK immigration authorities stopped him after sensing something suspicious.

“To check his credentials, they asked him where Big Ben (the iconic London structure) was. Rajan, however, was unable to answer the question correctly,” said a senior police officer involved in the investigation.

“Based on this, the UK immigration authorities were able to confirm that the passport was fake and that the passport-holder was not a resident of London. The UK police promptly deported him to Singapore because he had arrived from there. On his arrival to Singapore, the authorities detained him and he was in police custody for over 10 days,” the officer added.

According to Shetty, Rajan was able to get in touch with him, and informed him about the incident and his detention in Singapore. Shetty now had to figure out a way to free Rajan, because Singapore has extremely stringent laws. More importantly, Rajan had to be removed from detention before the authorities could find out his real identity.

“Shetty then used all his clout and connections in Bangkok and Singapore and somehow managed to get Rajan released before his real identity was disclosed. Shetty then took him to Bangkok,” the officer said.

Apart from this incident wherein Shetty saved Rajan just in the nick of time, the other tale of Rajan’s rescue that the arrested gangster has told police is even more dramatic.

In September 2000, Rajan was tracked down in Bangkok by members of the Chhota Shakeel gang and was shot at. During this firing incident, Rajan, who was using the alias of Vijay Kadam, was admitted to a hospital by Thai police who did not know his real identity.

At the hospital, Shetty and Bharat Nepali figured that the don was still vulnerable because of poor security. Both of them hatched a daring escape plan and with the help of pulleys and ropes, heaved an injured Rajan from the fourth floor of the hospital to a waiting van and fled with him to the Cambodian border. From there, they entered Cambodia and helped Rajan escape before he could be targeted again.