mumbai

Updated: Feb 24, 2020 12:08 IST

Arrested in South Africa, gangster Ravi Pujari, a wanted accused in 51 cases in Mumbai, including murder, extortion and shootouts over the past 24 years, will be brought to India on Monday, said police.

Pujari has been named in at least 200 cases across the country. He was arrested in Senegal in West Africa in January 2019, where he jumped bail and fled to South Africa, where he was involved in drug trafficking and extortion racket. Sources in Indian Intelligence said he was hiding as Anthony Fernandes, a Burkina Faso passport holder, and was located in a remote village of South Africa. On a tip-off from the Indian external intelligence agency, the Senegal police air-dashed to South Africa last week and caught the 52-year-old gangster. He is being brought to the country by a team of officials, including senior IPS officers from his hometown Karnataka, where he is booked in 79 cases.

“[We are] coming with him from Senegal. Now in Paris. [We are] coming by Air France and [would be] there [in India] by midnight,” a police official, who is part of the team, told PTI. The National Investigation Agency, Central Bureau of Investigation and the Research and Analysis Wing would join the investigation, sources said.

A senior Karnataka police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told HT, “He is being brought to the country even as we speak and is likely to land in the early hours of Monday. Teams involving ADGP Amar Kumar Pandey and joint commissioner of police Sandeep Patil are involved in the mission, apart from a few department officials from Mangaluru who have tracked him and his family for years.” Police officials said extraordinary precautions are being taken, given his record of throwing legal spanner into the works at the last minute or disappearing completely. “We want to keep this quiet till he is on our soil,” the police officer said.

After his arrest in Senegal, the Mumbai crime branch’s anti-extortion cell (AEC) compiled a dossier with details of 20 cases against him in Mumbai for his extradition. “The selected cases were mostly registered under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Act (MCOCA),” said an AEC official. “All case papers were written in Marathi and were translated in English, which took at least two months. Apart from the documents, we collected biometric proof, including DNA samples collected from his family.” The crime branch then handed over the compiled documents to additional chief secretary (home) who sent them to the ministry of home affairs (MHA) in Delhi to start the extradition process. A senior Mumbai crime branch official said the police in Karnataka, Kerala and Gujarat and other cities also prepared similar dossiers which were submitted to the MHA, from where they were sent to the authorities in Senegal.