NEW DELHI: Early this year, Dawood Ibrahim ’s main man and underworld don Chhota Shakeel had made a “final plan” to eliminate his long-time rival Chhota Rajan. Shakeel , who had unsuccessfully planned hits in the past on Rajan, had even pinpointed the location where the ‘Hindu don’ was suspected to be.

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However, things fortuitously turned in Rajan’s favour – he was tipped off about D-Company’s plan to bump him off like in Bangkok several years ago. An alarmed Rajan immediately went under the radar.

TOI has access to intercepts which map how close Shakeel had come to fulfilling his boss Dawood’s wish to kill Rajan and what helped the one-time No.2 in the D-Company survive.

The intercepts showed a surge in calls from Karachi to a particular person in India in April this year. The phone calls were made from a WLL number (00971504******) listed in Nepal.

Intelligence agencies, always on the tail of Dawood’s main man, were listening in on conversations being conducted in a mix of Hindi and Urdu. Soon, they were to start seeing the contours of a comprehensive plan, based on Dawood’s success in winning over one of Rajan’s most trusted aides to snitch on him.

The calls showed an intense effort to cajole Rajan’s lieutenant to disclose his boss’s whereabouts. “He has been trying to project us in bad light and pretends to be a patriot,” Shakeel is heard telling Rajan’s aide who was promised a generous reward for ratting.

“Last time, too, he had a narrow escape. You just open up and help us. We will make sure he is taken this time (sic),” Shakeel told Rajan’s aide. Continuing with his determined persuasion, Shakeel threw the bait, “The power is this side. He will keep running around. Trust me, if you… you will be taken care of."

The “rat” could not resist the offer for too long, and gave away Rajan's precise location in Newcastle, Australia.

Immediately, a few shooters were dispatched from a Middle-East country to Australia. Shakeel’s instruction was cold and crisp: Rajan was to be eliminated at any cost this time.

Unfortunately for him, a mysterious benefactor of Rajan was also keeping tabs on Shakeel’s increasingly desperate conversations. Rajan was alerted and he went underground. Within hours, he had left Australia to a location unknown to Shakeel’s mole in his camp.

When contacted, sources in Indian intelligence agencies, which tail Dawood and Shakeel, refused to say anything beyond confirming that D-Company had planned a meticulous hit on Rajan in Australia but failed to get the target. “Shakeel's plan was eventually unsuccessful,” a source said.

Rajan has slowed down with age and no longer resembles the threat he posed to Dawood immediately after splitting with him. But the plot underlined D-Company’s seething anger against him, as well as the determination to eliminate him.

Rajan has escaped attempts on his life more than once. In 2000, Dawood’s men had almost succeeded when they cornered him in a crowded Bangkok market. Dawood’s men fired at him. Rajan sustained multiple bullet injuries and could not recuperate fully. He had since been living behind a cordon that he had created and considered impregnable until April when Shakeel breached it by bribing one of his confidants.