For all the hoopla about gangster Chhota Rajan - so called to distinguish him from his former patron Rajan Nair alias Bada Rajan - not everyone is sure that he'll be brought to justice in India very soon.

The most famous adversary of mafia don Dawood Ibrahim is like the proverbial cat with nine lives. Rajan (real name: Rajendra Sadashiv Nikhalje) has, after all, escaped deportation and death before, at the last minute.

In September 2000, Rajan almost got killed by Dawood's men at Rajan aide Rohit Verma's residence at Bangkok's Sukhumvit area. Verma was killed and Rajan escaped by the skin of his teeth by jumping from the first floor of the house.

In November that year, Rajan was in a hospital in Bangkok, recuperating after the assassination attempt. The Mumbai police had sent a team to Bangkok to extradite him. But with the help of gangster and then friend Santosh Shetty (and six of Rajan's strongest men), Rajan escaped the hospital from under the noses of the Thai police, with mountaineering equipment. He was whisked away in a Cambodian army vehicle and a chopper to Cambodia.

That's not all. In 1993, when he had apparently outlived his usefulness to Dawood Ibrahim, he was tipped off about a possible attempt on his life.

Dawood was to throw a party on a yacht moored off the coast of Dubai. Dawood and his gang were riding high. He hadn't made any attempt to hide his presence in Dubai and was often seen hobnobbing with Bollywood actresses, actors and cricketers. Just before the commencement of the party, Chhota Rajan was tipped off by his loyalists about a plan to cast him into the sea at this party. He didn't take any chances and skipped the party.

Rajan certainly has luck on his side. In 2002, he used a Sikh name, posed as a UK citizen with dual citizenship and arrived at Brussels from Singapore. He was travelling on a British passport. Immigration got suspicious and asked him about Big Ben. Rajan fumbled. They deported him back to Singapore. But before the Indian authorities were alerted, he was whisked off on a speedboat by Santosh Shetty.

Rajan started life by hawking cinema tickets in the black market near a theatre in Chembur in Mumbai. He was an avid Mithun Chakraborty fan and then even parted his hair in the middle like Mithun. He came to the attention of Rajan Nair when he and his men beat up five police constables who had come to the theatre to check black marketing of tickets for a Mithun film. He joined Dawood after Rajan Nair was killed and avenged Nair's murder, and quickly rose through the Dawood gang's ranks to become one of Dawood's lieutenants.

His fall began after he failed to extract revenge for Dawood Ibrahim's brother-in-law's killing by Arun Gawli's men. In September 1992, Chhota Shakeel and Sunil Sawant, both Dawood's men, managed to kill one of the assailants in a daring attack at the state-run J.J. Hospital. The audacious assault rocked Mumbai.

Rajan tried to prove his loyalty to Dawood. After the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai, when Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray called Dawood Ibrahim a desh drohi, Chhota Rajan faxed a handwritten letter to newspaper offices in Mumbai protesting about Dawood being called a traitor. He used his real name Sadashiv Nikhalje to sign the letter. The very emotional letter absolved Dawood of any involvement in the blasts and questioned Bal Thackeray's motive.

But if Chhota Rajan expected to score brownie points with Dawood, it didn't work. In 1994, he took the most dangerous decision of his life - he left Dawood, his mentor and benefactor. Some months later, he established contact with the Indian embassy in Dubai and Indian Intelligence Bureau officials, begging for refuge. He wanted a fresh passport and a new identity. In exchange for protection from Dawood and the law, he was willing to divulge all information he had on Dawood Ibrahim. For more than 15 years, the deal continued till something went drastically wrong.

In all those years, he lead a peripatetic existence, in Malaysia, Australia and elsewhere. At one point, Chhota Rajan lived in Iran for a while, masquerading as an Indian businessman dealing in imports and exports. He is said to have been in a relationship with an Iranian woman. But Chhota Shakeel tracked him down and Rajan was forced to flee.

In the years after his break with Dawood, he had gone on a rampage against Dawood and his men. In 1995, Rajan's men killed Thakiyuddin Wahid, the managing director of East-West Airlines. Rajan claimed that Dawood had invested in East-West.

He also projected himself as a patriotic don and proceeded to eliminate some of the 1993 bomb blasts accused who had been granted bail by the Tada court. Over 100 shootouts were reported in 1998 in Mumbai.

After his break from Dawood, his fortunes plummeted but he became rich again, thanks to the redevelopment of the huge Sahakar Nagar colony in Tilak Nagar in Chembur where he grew up. Every ground plus two structures got a builder who had to get the clearance of the civic agencies as well as Chhota Rajan's men to redevelop buildings. In a decade or so, almost all the buildings at Sahakar Nagar have become multi-storeyed towers.

Chhota Rajan has always been protected by his band of informers who have often risked their lives to tip him off - despite his record of being a dangerous friend. He had absolutely no qualms about bumping off friends who didn't want to offer him the lion's share of pickings.

A top cop who doesn't want to be identified but has been keeping tabs on Rajan for the last couple of years believes some politicians would not want Chhota Rajan in India, as skeletons could tumble out of many cupboards. "Chhota Rajan has cooperated with the Indian government and the police in a lot of issues. The fear is that his arrival in India will spark off trouble for a lot of people."

But India has signed an extradition treaty with Indonesia and the police at Bali have said they're willing to deport him. Lady Luck may not favour the man from Chembur anymore.