Chhota Rajan headed for Middle-East?

BANGKOK, NOV. 25. The Mumbai gangster, Chhota Rajan, who escaped from a hospital eluding heavy police security, has left Thailand, his lawyer and police said on Saturday.

Rajan, wanted back home on charges of murder, escaped on Friday morning from his room at Samitivej Hospital in Bangkok, where he was being guarded by Thai police pending possible extradition. Police believe Rajan has left Thailand either by sea or overland to Cambodia. They were investigating whether any of the seven officers guarding him had been paid off.

Rajan had been in police custody since he was shot and wounded at a Bangkok apartment by eight gunmen from a rival gang. His associate was killed and the associate's wife injured.

Mr. Sirichai Piyapichetkul, a lawyer who represented Rajan, said he had called him on Friday night after his escape to say good- bye. ``He appreciated my legal help and said he would leave by sea early Saturday morning, cruising across the Gulf of Thailand.''

Rajan said he was heading to somewhere in South-East Asia and then to the Middle-East. He said he had paid 25 million baht ($ 5,80,000) to a ``two star general'' to let him escape. Mr. Sirichai believed Rajan was referring to a senior Thai immigration official.

``He said it was the right decision to flee as he had been held unlawfully by Thai police,'' said Mr. Sirichai. Thai immigration police on Friday suggested that the heavily-built Rajan had lowered himself from his 4th story hospital room using a rope made from bedsheets tied together.

``He was amused to hear the police plot,'' said Mr. Sirichai. ``He said he was not a spiderman. He just walked out. He knew nothing about what happened after he left that room. It depended on those police who were bribed to make up the scene.''

Police Col. Visith Nimitkul, who inspected the room, said Rajan had apparently escaped using mountain climbing rope and gear. Two officers, who were deployed inside the room said, they were drugged.

PTI reports from New Delhi:

The Government today said it was in touch with Interpol over the dramatic escape of Rajan and denied reports that its agencies had any hand in it.

Referring to media reports that the Centre and its agencies had a direct link with the episode, an official release said, ``There is no truth whatsoever in these conjectures or accusations, which are categorically denied. The reports in question seem to be a mischievous attempt on the part of vested interests to misguide the people.''

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Previous : U.S. apex court intervenes in poll battle