New Delhi in no hurry to get Chhota Rajan back

New Delhi in no hurry to get Chhota Rajan back
JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, October 11: Nearly three weeks after gangster Chhota Rajan was shot at in Thailand, the Ministry of External Affairs is finally processing documents -- but curiously, to extradite him rather than deport him.

According to sources in the government, New Delhi's choice route to bring Rajan back home seems to be through the long-winded and far more complicated extradition procedure, fuelling speculation that the government would like to delay as long as possible his re-entry into the country.

If the government were really keen on nabbing Rajan, sources said, they would have asked Thai authorities to immediately deport him as soon as it was discovered that Rajan was travelling on a false passport. ``That is a straightforward request which any foreign government cannot refuse,'' sources added.

Since no deportation request has been filed so far, it is more than likely that the government will now seek his extradition, they said.

A Ministry spokesman said today that ``documents for (his) extradition have been received from the Mumbai police on October 9. These documents are being examined from the legal and other points of view so that they meet all the requirements of the requested state...The Mumbai police authorities have been requested for more documents which are awaited.''

But any request for extradition is necessarily a time-consuming process in law. First, the extradition request has to be accompanied by well-documented charges that the person in question is a criminal in the home country and therefore needs to face the courts here.

The charges would then be sent to the court in the country in which the criminal has been found -- in this case, Thailand -- where Chhota Rajan would have the opportunity to fight the case. Once that happens, sources said, it is anybody's guess how long it will take for the Thai courts to resolve the matter in India's favour.

The classic extradition case being cited is that of Nadeem, the playback singer accused of murdering Gulshan Kumar, who fled to the UK about three years ago. An extradition request has been filed with the British authorities for his return and should have been successful since India and the UK have an extraditon treaty.

But Nadeem has taken the plea in Britain that he should not be sent back to India since he is a Muslim and that the Indian courts do not mete fair justice to people from the minority community.

Government sources, pointing to the ``fallacy'' of the plea, said under normal circumstances such a plea would have been summarily thrown out by any court, especially if the charges were documented properly by the investigating agencies. But nothing seems to have happened so far.

The same logic applies to the case of the Hinduja brothers, two of whom are British citizens and the third, Prakash Hinduja, is said to have recently taken Swiss citizenship. India has no extradition treaty with Switzerland, but neither is the government said to be preparing a case against the two Hindujas who live in the UK.