Thai police to probe `bribe' in Rajan escape
REUTERS

BANGKOK, NOV 26: Thai police, humiliated by the escape of Chhota Rajan from a supposedly tightly guarded hospital room, said today they were investigating reports he had bribed a police general to gain his freedom.

``We've seen the press reports this morning, but national police chief Pornsak Durongkavibulya told me he did not believe in that allegation,'' national police spokesman Pongsapat Pongcharoen said.

``However, police general Pornsak will not sit idly to the news as he has already ordered a probe into this report.''

Local newspapers quoted Chhota Rajan's former lawyer as saying the fugitive told him by tele phone he had paid 25 million baht (600,000 dollar) to a two-star police general for his freedom.

The Thai-language newspaper Kao Sod (fresh news) published what it said was a transcript of a telephone conversation between Rajan and his former lawyer Sirichai Piyapichetkul.

It quoted Rajan as saying, in a call to Sirichai around midnight on Friday last, that he escaped using an emergency exit.

A member of the police investigation team has previously said there was evidence that Rajan used rock climbing gear to descend from a fourth floor window of the hospital on Friday without being noticed by seven policemen guarding his room.

``The story exists only in Indian movies. I am a very heavy man. I used the emergency exit to escape from the hospital,'' Rajan was quoted as saying.According to the transcript, Rajan said he was to leave Thailand by boat, heading for a country in South-East Asia which was not specified and then possibly the Middle East.

The daily quoted a hospital security guard as saying that a chubby, Indian-looking man tipped him 500 baht for hailing a cab for him.

Rajan, awaiting a hearing to decide if he should be extradited to India on murder and other mob-related charges, suffered gunshot wounds during a Bangkok shootout in mid-September and had been in hospital for treatment since then.

Indian police say Rajan has nine registered cases pending against him, mostly for extortion, murder, attempt to murder and rioting.

He is also wanted in connection with the killing of a prominent Bombay businessman Ashraf Patel in August.

Thai police said at least two of seven guards face hearings over whether they turned a blind eye to the hospital escape.

Thai media quoted unnamed police sources on Saturday as saying the escape had been well planned by Rajan's friends in Bangkok and the fugitive might have reached Cambodia.

Indian officials in New Delhi said they would continue to pursue Rajan with the help of the Bangkok authorities.