Alleged Indian crime boss Chhota Rajan claims he didn't surrender to Indonesian police, countering rumours his arrest was part of a secret deal with Indian security agencies.

"I want to go back to India. I don't want to go to Zimbabwe," he told reporters as he was being taken for interrogation on Thursday, NDTV reported.

Bali Police Commissioner Reinhard Nainggolan, however, said that Rajan wanted to go to Zimbabwe and not India as his wife and father are dead. Rajan's wife is alive and lives in Mumbai.

"He asked us to release him as he wanted to go to Zimbabwe. He said that he lived in Australia and before that, in Zimbabwe and wanted to go there," Nainggolan said.

The 55-year-old Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, known in India as Chhota Rajan, is wanted in India for the murders of up to 20 women.

Nikalje was arrested in Indonesia on Sunday. The crime boss, who has been on the run for two decades, had been evading police in several countries for years, with Interpol flagging him as a wanted man back in 1995.

Acting on a tip-off from Australian police, Indonesian authorities detained Nikalje as he arrived in the popular resort island of Bali from Sydney, Bali police spokesman Heri Wiyanto said.

“We arrested the man at the airport yesterday. What we know is that this man was suspected to have carried out 15 to 20 murders in India”.

Nikalje was the alleged former right-hand man of Mumbai crime kingpin Dawood Ibrahim, who is suspected of being behind the 1993 bomb blasts in the city that killed more than 250 people. The two went their separate ways after the 1993 blasts.

Also read: Indian suspected of multiple murders arrested in Bali

The two sworn rivals had reportedly sent hit squads to eliminate each other.