Indonesia to repatriate Indian wanted for multiple murders

DENPASAR: An alleged Indian crime boss arrested in Indonesia after decades on the run is scheduled to be flown home later Tuesday,  where he is wanted for up to 20 murders.

Indonesian authorities detained Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje at the weekend as he arrived in the popular resort island of Bali on a flight from Sydney.



Police said Nikalje, who has been kept in a holding cell in Bali dressed in orange prison fatigues, would be flown directly back to India at 23:00 (1500GMT) Tuesday.

"We will bring him to the airport and hand him to Interpol," Bali police spokesman Heri Wiyanto told AFP, referring to the international criminal police organisation.

"No special security arrangement has been made."

Nikalje, known in India as Chhota Rajan, had been evading police in several countries for years, with Interpol flagging him as a wanted man back in 1995.

The 55-year-old was arrested in Indonesia following a tip-off from Australian police, who confirmed in September the fugitive had been living there under another identity.

Nikalje was the alleged former right-hand man of Mumbai crime kingpin Dawood Ibrahim, who is suspected of being behind the 1993 bomb blasts in the city that killed more than 250 people.

Nikalje later became Ibrahim's rival, accused of running one of several underworld outfits that had a grip on India's financial and entertainment capital in the 1980s and 1990s until a police crackdown.



Among other crimes, police accused Nikalje in 2011 of ordering the murder of a prominent Mumbai crime reporter, who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting the same year.