Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday filed a supplementary chargesheet against deported gangster Chhota Rajan in the J-Dey murder case. The investigating agency has come up with some additional witnesses and documents and also converted one witness into an accused, who, according to them, is now absconding.
Special CBI counsel Bharat Badami submitted a copy of the chargesheet to special MCOCA judge Samir Adkar and sought time to provide a copy to all the accused. “We would provide a copy of the chargesheet to the accused without the names of witnesses. We need some time to provide a copy to the accused, as our officers would be bringing in truncated copies from Delhi,” said Mr Badami.
The CBI has claimed that the ‘voice spectrograph’ test has suggested that a conversation of Rajan’s that was intercepted has matched his voice. Rajan’s voice samples were taken when he was in judicial custody.
As per CBI sources, the name of the absconding accused added in the fresh chargesheet is Ravi Ram Rateshwar. Rateshwar’s name was there in the list of witnesses in the chargesheet filed by the Mumbai crime branch, but the CBI has decided to make him an accused in the case because he had himself provided 20 global SIM cards to various people, including those accused in the case.
The CBI has said that the motive behind senior journalist Mr Dey’s murder was that he had referred to Rajan in some of his articles as ‘chindi’ (miserly) and that he was writing two different books on the underworld. Mr Dey had already written two books in the past and, in an upcoming book — ‘Chindi – Rags to Riches’ — Mr Dey had planned to write stories about 20 gangsters.
According to the chargesheet, “Dey was going to expose Rajan’s fake patriotic mask that he had used to secure himself and accumulate wealth for his family. The book was to have revealed that Rajan had no concern for those who had made him big.”
It is also claimed in the chargesheet that Mr Dey had planned to leave journalism. But before that, he wanted to write the two books and, for that, he had met several people and also visited the Philippines and other countries to gather information. In the meantime, Rajan had called Mr Dey for a meeting, but the latter had refused to meet him.
