MUMBAI: Gangster Chhota Rajan (Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje) was acquitted in a case related to the 1997 murder of trade union leader and a Member of Parliament, Datta Samant for want of evidence. A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court acquitted him on Friday noting that there was nothing on record to prove that Rajan hatched the conspiracy for Samant's murder. 

"The material witnesses have turned hostile. They do not support the case of the prosecution. The testimony of other witnesses is not sufficient to prove the charges against the accused," the court said. 

Samant, who was a qualified M.B.B.S. doctor from K.E.M. hospital, and practised as a physician in Pant Nagar locality of Ghatkhopar, was a very popular union leader who organised the massive 1981-82 textile mill workers' strike in Mumbai. The 1981-82, indefinite strike against the textile mill owners in erstwhile Bombay was supported by about 2.5 lakh mill workers and lasted for 18 months.

Samant was shot dead on January 16, 1997, while travelling in his Jeep to his office in Pant Nagar by assailants, who came on a motorbike and fired 17 rounds at him with two pistols before fleeing. Samant was shot in his head, chest and stomach and died on the spot, and death sparked protests across the city, and a large procession of union activists gathered at his cremation.

In the case against Rajan, gangster Guru Satam and Rajan's trusted lieutenant Rohit Verma were shown as absconding accused and their trial was separated. In 2005 police arrested 3 men and charged them with Samant's murder. The prosecution claimed that Rajan hatched the murder conspiracy. 

The gangster, however, is not likely to be released from jail anytime soon as he is facing trial in dozens of cases in various cities. In the first phase of the trial, the judgment was pronounced in July 2000. 

With this acquittal, Rajan will not be released as he is being tried for several cases registered against him, while he was working with his former partner and right hand of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim before splitting with him in 1993 and forming an independent gang that frequently clashed with Dawood's D-Company

He was arrested in October 2015 from Bali in Indonesia and Rajan was to India a month later after 27 years on the run, the CBI took over all the cases registered against him.