Chhota Rajan back in Tihar jail after recovering from COVID-19

New Delhi: Gangster Chhota Rajan, who was admitted at AIIMS here for treatment after he had tested positive for COVID-19, was taken back to Tihar jail on Tuesday following his recovery from illness, officials said.

Chhota Rajan was admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital on April 26 after he tested positive Covid.

According to a senior police officer, Rajan was brought back to Tihar on Tuesday as he had recovered.

On last Friday, the jail administration had dismissed reports claiming that Rajan had died.

''News of death of Tihar jail inmate Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje @ Chhota Rajan s/o Sadashiv Nikalje is wrong,'' Director General (Prisons) Sandeep Goel had said.

Rajan, 61, is lodged at the high-security prison since his arrest after deportation from Bali in Indonesia in 2015.

All the criminal cases pending against him in Mumbai were transferred to the CBI and a special court was constituted to try them.

Rajan is facing as many as 70 criminal cases pertaining to extortion and murder in Mumbai.

In 2018, Rajan was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2011 murder case of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey.

Last week, the special CBI court in Mumbai acquitted Rajan and his aide in connection with the murder of Hanif Kadawala, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case.