November 19, 2020 1:21:48 pm
Ravi Pujari was extradited to India from Senegal in February.
Gangster Ravi Pujari, who was extradited to India from Senegal in February, he has so far only been questioned by Karnataka police. Other police forces in the country have sought his custody, but Pujari tries to delay it.
Pujari has hundreds of cases against him, many of which are linked to extortion, the victims being actors and politicians.
What units of the state police have requested custody of Ravi Pujari?
Pujari has cases registered against him in Karnataka, Mumbai, Gujarat and Kerala, among other states. These three police forces have made various attempts to obtain custody of the gangster.
The Karnataka criminal branch is investigating 107 registered cases against Pujari in the state.
Mumbai police, who plan to try Pujari in 19 major cases, approached the Karnataka courts several times in recent months, but were unsuccessful. until last week.
Has Pujari taken steps to delay the transfer of his custody to other police forces?
Yes. When the Mumbai criminal branch began seeking his custody, Pujari, through his lawyer, filed a judicial petition in the Karnataka High Court requesting that he remain with the Karnataka police until the trial of the main cases in his case was completed. against in the state. The lawyer had argued that allowing his custody to other state police forces would cause delays in trials.
How did the Mumbai police get custody last Friday?
A session court in Bengaluru allowed the Mumbai police take custody of Pujari last week based on a letter written by a special court in Mumbai that is conducting trial in a 2015 case related to the murder conspiracy charge against political leader Raju Patil. The court had also issued a production order requesting that Pujari appear before him for trial, as he is a wanted defendant and charges will be brought against him. 📣 Express Explained is now on Telegram
Why is Ravi Pujari trying to delay custody of the Mumbai police?
While he opposed the Mumbai criminal branch’s guilty plea, based on the Mumbai court production order, Pujari’s lawyer Dilraj Sequeira said he feared for his life due to the large number of cases of Covid-19 in Mumbai.
The sources, however, said that Pujari does not want to be taken to Mumbai because he fears for his life. Due to the intense gang wars in Mumbai in the past, members of various gangs are kept in separate barracks in the same prison, or ideally in separate jails, so that they do not attack each other.
An aide to Chhota Rajan, OP Singh, was killed in a Nashik prison by members of a rival gang in 2002.
In 2013, the gangster Abu Salem was attacked in Taloja prison by one Devendra Jagtap who had managed to smuggle a firearm into the prison premises. Salem survived the attack.
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Does Ravi Pujari have any gang affiliations?
Rajan, a native of Udipi, had moved to the city in his early years and resided in Dombivli. Then he moved to Andheri. He came to Chhota Rajan’s attention after he killed Bala Zalte, whom he suspected of having tipped off the police about a gang member. He then started working for the gang, which at the time had Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan on the same side.
Later, after the 1992-1993 communal riots in Mumbai, when the gang split up and Rajan and Dawood became sworn enemies, Pujari sided with Rajan. However, when Pujari was attacked in Bangkok in 2000, he became suspicious of several people, including Rajan, of leaking his location. Pujari then founded his own gang and modeled his personality as a ‘Hindu don’, like his mentor Rajan, who was later extradited to Mumbai from Indonesia in 2015. Since then, he has functioned independently and has no affiliations to any gang in the city. .
When are they likely to bring Pujari to Mumbai?
While Mumbai police said they would attempt to bring the gangster to Mumbai in a week, Pujari’s lawyer is likely to object the judicial order of sessions in the Superior Court.
According to his lawyer, the Raju Patil case is not mentioned in the list of cases for which he could be tried in the extradition order of the Senegalese government.
If the Superior Court does not intervene, it should be in town next week, an official said.
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