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HomeIndiaRavi Pujari — English-speaking don, 'Preity Zinta fan' in Mumbai Police custody...

Ravi Pujari — English-speaking don, ‘Preity Zinta fan’ in Mumbai Police custody after 25 yrs

Gangster Ravi Pujari was brought back to India over 25 years after he fled. He was intercepted at a barber’s shop at Dakar in Senegal in 2019. There are 49 cases registered against him.

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Mumbai: Pradeep Sharma, retired senior police inspector and one of Mumbai Police’s sharpshooters, vividly remembers the encounter of Shrikant Desai and what happened thereafter. Desai, known as ‘Mama’, was an aide of underworld don Rajendra Nikhalje, alias Chhota Rajan.

Sharma killed Desai in 1993 along with Vijay Salaskar, another officer from Mumbai Police’s infamous batch of 1983 that produced several ‘encounter specialists’.

The same year, Bala Zalte, a small-time gangster was brutally murdered by a junior and hitherto insignificant member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang.

The Mumbai Police had picked up Zalte for questioning a week before Desai’s encounter and this junior member suspected Zalte of being a mole, Sharma told ThePrint.

This junior member was Ravi Pujari and the incident was the beginning of his career as a gangster. 

“Pujari killed Bala Zalte and shot to fame in the underworld circles. Everyone was talking about him saying ‘Bhai (Mama) ka badla liya (he took revenge for bhai)’,” Sharma said.

On Tuesday, Pujari was brought back to Mumbai more than 25 years after he fled the country. He was intercepted at a barber’s shop at Dakar in Senegal in 2019 and extradited to India last year. 

The Mumbai Police, which has registered 49 cases against the gangster, got Pujari’s custody from Karnataka Police earlier this week. 


Also read: Mumbai gangster watched the film Satya 18 times to study how to become a real-life villain


Ravi Pujari and the Mumbai underworld 

At least three retired Mumbai Police officers, who had worked in the city during the late 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, told ThePrint that Pujari was never seen as a big gangster during the heydays of the Mumbai underworld. 

It was only after the police had nearly neutralised this underbelly of the city that Pujari tried to occupy the space, mainly by resorting to extortion. 

“There was a lot of vacuum when we neutralised the underworld and cleaned up the space. Ravi Pujari decided to occupy this space. He is extremely good at using technology. He used Voice Over Internet Protocol to make his extortion threats and that ensured he was difficult to trace,” a former Mumbai commissioner of Police, told The Print.

When the underworld was active, Pujari was still in the process of climbing the ranks. 

After Zalte’s murder, Pujari started working directly with Rohit Verma, alias ‘Hammer’, who was the number two in the Chhota Rajan gang. He also took over Mama’s operations in the gang. 

Rajan split from the Dawood gang in the aftermath of the 1993 Mumbai blasts that the underworld don is said to have masterminded. 

Rajan wanted to position himself as a “patriotic don”, and formed his own gang — sparking numerous gang wars between Rajan and Dawood’s men. 

In the Dawood versus Rajan feud, Pujari sided with the latter, earning his trust. He also worked with Guru Satam, another trusted lieutenant of Rajan. 

The ‘RP gang’

In the early 2000s, Pujari splintered his ties with Rajan and formed his own gang after there was an attack on Rajan’s life while he was in Bangkok. 

Sharma told ThePrint Rajan suspected that Pujari had passed on information about him to the rival gang. 

“This is when they split. Guru Satam’s power was almost finished and Ravi Pujari started off on his own. His people were known as ‘RP gang’,” said Sharma, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 assembly election as a Shiv Sena candidate. 

A second retired top Mumbai police officer said, “Pujari poached foot soldiers of Chhota Rajan and (gangster) Chhota Shakeel, but like these other gangsters, he didn’t leave a history of gang wars, murders and bloodshed.

“He largely indulged in extortion. He would threaten Bollywood personalities and realtors. There were some instances of violence, but mostly it seemed the intention was not to cause grave physical harm, but to instil fear.”

Following in the footsteps of his mentor Rajan, Pujari decided to mould himself as a “Hindu don”.

The first violent act linked to him was in 2005 when unidentified men shot at Majeed Memon, criminal lawyer and now a Nationalist Congress Party leader. 

Pujari’s gang was said to have taken responsibility for the attack, saying Memon was targeted for defending the 2002 Ghatkopar blast accused. Memon was also representing those accused in the 1993 serial blasts.


Also read: Why the police class of 1983 was feared by Mumbai’s underworld


‘Threatening’ celebrities

Pujari went on to threaten and demand “protection money” from several personalities in Mumbai, Karnataka, and even Pune.  

Many connected to Bollywood faced the heat, such as filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, whose office was shot at in 2006; actor Karishma Kapoor’s former husband Sanjay Kapur, who was allegedly threatened by Pujari; industrialist Nusli Wadia, whose family was asked to stay away from actor Preity Zinta by Pujari because he was her “very big fan”.

In 2011, members allegedly from Pujari’s gang shot dead two men at a construction site of Sahana Group. A special MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court convicted three of Pujari’s men for the crime in 2016. 

In the same year, Pujari’s men allegedly fired outside Gajalee restaurant in Vile Parle — this is the case for which the Mumbai Police has currently got Pujari’s custody

In 2018, student activist Shehla Rashid filed a complaint against the gangster for allegedly threatening her, former JNU student leader Umar Khalid and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani. 

Early life

Pujari was born in Malpe in Karnataka’s Udupi district. He, however, spent most of his life in Mumbai, first at Dombivali and later, running a tea stall in Andheri. 

Sharma said he was one of the better educated dons, having received education till the 12th standard, and could speak in English, Hindi as well as Marathi. 

The Mumbai Police had first arrested Pujari in 1995 and recorded his fingerprints then. However, he fled the country soon after he was let out on bail. 

It is on the basis of these fingerprints that the Karnataka Police confirmed Pujari’s identity and applied for his extradition from Senegal. 

While on the run, Pujari moved several countries and lived under many assumed identities in places such as Australia, Malaysia, Dubai, Nepal, Uganda, Thailand and Burkina Faso. 

His last alias was Anthony Fernandes, said to be inspired from Amitabh Bachchan’s character in ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’. 

On Tuesday, the don was back in a Mumbai court as Ravi Pujari. 


Also read: How Karnataka Police nabbed Ravi Pujari, ‘Hindu don’ facing 200 cases, in Senegal


 

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