Bada Rajan

Rajan Mahadev Nair (Bada Rajan)
Born	unknown Mumbai
Died	21 September 1983 Mumbai
Other names	Bada Rajan
Occupation	Gangster, criminal, racketeer,
Years active	early 1970s–1983
Criminal charge	Murder

Rajan Mahadev Nair (died 30 September 1983), popularly known in the Mumbai underworld by his moniker Bada Rajan (literally Elder Rajan) was an Indian mobster and underworld don from Mumbai, who operated a gang active in Mumbai's eastern suburbs of Ghatkopar, Tilak Nagar and Chembur. On 21 September 1983, he was shot dead by the Pathan gang because he had helped Dawood Ibrahim by instructing a gang member David Pardeshi to shoot dead Amirzada from the Pathan gang.

Rajan Nair lived in a slum in Ghatkopar in the east Mumbai. He worked in a small factory in Thane. With mounting expenses and greed for excess money, he got into the habit of stealing branded typewriters and selling them in Chor Bazaar. Once he was accidentally arrested by a police team in search of another criminal and served imprisonment. When he was released, he took to full time crime in Ghatkopar, especially black marketing of cinema tickets, spurious liquor and extortion from shop keepers. After a few years, a band of daring youngsters from neighbouring Tilak Nagar were released from jail. They were imprisoned on the charges of cinema ticket black marketing and beating up the police who tried to stop them. That group was led by Rajendra Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan.

To increase his muscle power and clout in the area, Nair welcomed Nikalje in his gang and they both were known as Bada Rajan (Elder Rajan) and Chhota Rajan (Younger Rajan). They soon took over most of the crime in Mumbai's eastern suburbs of Ghatkopar, Pantnagar, Chembur and Tilaknagar

The early eighties saw a tectonic shift of power in the Mumbai underworld. Haji Mastan had virtually stopped his smuggling activities. The vicious Pathan gang started by Karim Lala was weakened by a split between his nephew Samad Khan on one side and Dawood Ibrahim on the other. The third don, Varadarajan Mudaliar from Dharavi moved in to extend his hold over north-east Mumbai. He extended his patronage to South Indian gangsters like Bada Rajan and Sadhu Shetty who carried out criminal activities in his name in north east Mumbai suburbs. Bada Rajan often used his clout with Varadarajan to intimidate his victims and rivals like Abdul Kunju, Yeshwant Jadhav and Philip Pandhre. Just like his mentor, Varadarajan, Bada Rajan started the Sahyadri Krida Mandal to celebrate the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in his area. In 1982, Samad Khan and his Pathan gangsters Amirzada and Alamzeb murdered Saabir Ibrahim, elder brother of Dawood Ibrahim. Dawood plotted revenge. He offered a big supari (contract for killing) to kill Amirzada but nobody came forward. Bada Rajan saw his chance to rise in the underworld and accepted the supari. He had one of his junior gang member- an unemployed youth David Pardeshi shoot down Amirzada in the Mumbai sessions court on 6 September 1983.

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