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Updated: Aug 20, 2019 16:53 IST

A special MCOCA court on Tuesday convicted underworld don Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan and five others for shooting at a Mumbai hotelier BR Shetty almost eight years ago.

The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act court held Rajan, Nityanand Nayak, Selvin Daniel, Rohit Thangappan Joseph alias Satish Kalia, Dilip Upadhyay and Talvinder Singh guilty on charges of attempt to murder, hatching a criminal conspiracy and working under organised crime syndicate.

The court will now hear arguments on quantum of sentence after the lunch session.

Mumbai Police’s anti-extortion cell (AEC), which probed the case, claimed Rajan ordered his sharpshooter Kalia to eliminate Shetty. Kalia, who was in judicial custody for his involvement in a case related to senior journalist Jyotirmay Dey’s murder, asked his aide Gurudeep Singh, to approach Upadhyay and Talvinder Singh to carry out the killing.

Nayak and Daniel then conducted a survey and helped them identify Shetty. On October 3, 2012, Upadhyay and Singh followed Shetty on a motorcycle after he left from his office in Andheri in his Skoda car and was on his way home.

Also read: Chhota Rajan vs Dawood: Mumbai underworld’s bloodiest fight

At around 9:40pm, when Shetty reached a famous jewellery showroom in Andheri, Upadhyay opened fire at the businessman. Shetty sustained an injury to his right arm and survived. The accused immediately escaped and the hotelier rushed to the nearby Oshiwara police station from where he was taken to a hospital.

The cell concluded after its investigation that the attack was pre-planned by Rajan and other wanted accused to obtained pecuniary benefits for his gang.

During the investigation, two shooters along with Daniel and Nayak confessed to the crime and revealed details of the conspiracy. The court convicted all the six accused on the basis of their confessional statement and deposition of Shetty.

Chhota Rajan is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail after his deportation to India following his arrest in Indonesia in October 2015. Chhota Rajan is already serving life imprisonment for killing Dey.