23 years on, Chhota Rajan convicted for hotelier Jaya Shetty’s murder

Special MCOCA judge AM Patil convicted Rajan for committing offences punishable under sections 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the MCOCA, 1999. The special judge also imposed a fine of ₹16 lakh on the gangster

MUMBAI: A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court on Thursday convicted gangster Chhota Rajan for his role in the 2001 murder of restaurateur Jaya Shetty.

Chhota Rajan (REUTERS)

Chhota Rajan, who has been in jail in Delhi since his return to India in 2015, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Shetty’s murder.

Shetty, the owner of four restaurants in the city, had been receiving extortion threats from Rajan’s gang before he was ginned on May 4, 2001 at his restaurant Golden Crown at Grant Road. Two assailants had entered the premises and opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. On Thursday, the MCOCA court found Rajan, along with four other accused, guilty of having conspired to kill Jaya Shetty. Three of Rajan’s co-accused were tried earlier.

Special MCOCA judge AM Patil convicted Rajan for committing offences punishable under sections 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the MCOCA, 1999. The special judge also imposed a fine of ₹16 lakh on the gangster.

Rajan is already serving a life sentence for the murder of Mumbai journalist Jyotirmoy Dey in 2011. In May 2018, a special MCOCA court had sentenced nine convicts, including Rajan, to life imprisonment in Dey’s killing. Besides these two cases Chhota Rajan has also been convicted for the murder case of rival gangster Farid Tanasha, for firing at another hotelier, BR Shetty, and also for firing at a bookie-turned-builder, Ajay Gosalia.

During the Jaya Shetty trial, his son Manohar had informed the court that his father had been receiving extortion threats from December of 1999 and even received police protection. However, two months before his killing, his security cover had been withdrawn.

“ ₹50 lakhs were being demanded from my father in those extortion calls. On one occasion, at Khar, three persons came and gave him an international phone number and asked my father to speak to gangster Hemant Poojari,” Manohar testified, adding that when he and his younger brother, Mohan, reached the hotel they received a phone call from Poojari claiming that the call was on the order of Chhota Rajan, threatening to “wash out” the family if extortion money was not paid.

Special Public Prosecutor Pradip Gharat told the court, “The shooter was caught red-handed, faced trial and was convicted. The co-accused had confessed that they were working for Chhota Rajan. Moreover, there were extortion calls from Rajan to the victim. He had threatened to kill Shetty and his family in the event of him failing to pay the extortion money.”

Of the 71 cases registered against him, Chhota Rajan has been convicted in seven cases, six convictions being from Mumbai, where has at least seven more cases pending against him, the SPP added.

In a separate trial, in 2004, a special judge had sentenced shooter Ajay Mohite to life imprisonment. Two others, Pramod Dhonde and Rahul Pansare were acquitted on the murder charge but sentenced to five years imprisonment each for being members of an organised crime syndicate and aiding an organised crime. While acquitting Dhonde and Pansare, the judge had said that they were given benefit of the doubt about their knowledge of the planning of Shetty’s killing by the Chhotga Rajan gang.

Another accused Kundansingh Rawat who was present along with the shooter Ajay Mohite, had escaped while Mohite was caught. However, Rawat was later killed in a police encounter two years later in 2003.

The trial was kept pending against absconding accused including Chhota Rajan, Hemant Pujari and Sameer Manik. Subsequently, Manik was apprehended in 2005 and was acquitted in December of 2008. While acquitting Manik, the judge observed that there was no evidence other than the confession of a co-accused to find him guilty.

Rajan was arrested at Bali airport in Indonesia on October 25, 2015, and deported to India. The Maharashtra government has handed over all the cases pertaining to him to the Central Bureau of Investigation.