Why Chhota Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim parted ways

Mumbai: In 1993, India's most wanted gangster Chhota Rajan announced his fallout with underworld's top boss Dawood Ibrahim, following the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.

"Dawood is a traitor.. by executing the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, Dawood has proved that he is a traitor and I do not support traitors... which is why I have parted ways with him" Rajan had said, formally announcing his exit from the dreaded Dawood gang.

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While on the surface it seemed like it was ideological differences that made the two notorious kingpins split ways, many reports suggested that it was Dawood's aide Chhota Shakeel's growing clout that planted seeds of insecurity in the mind of Chhota Rajan.

“The split happened because Chhota Shakeel started to grow powerful in the gang. Shakeel’s rise unnerved Rajan. His eventual breaking away from the Dawood group was in keeping with internal developments. The split of the Dawood gang along religious lines is a myth,” Mumbai Police’s encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma had told a magazine in an interview.

Rajan's own stellar rise from the a petty bootlegger had caused much resentment among the members of the D-gang and he feared that a faction of the gang wanted to get rid of him.

Chhota Rajan fled to Dubai and went on to form his own crime syndicate there, setting the stage for a bitter rivalry, leading to much bad blood and gang-wars between the two rival groups.