After several Congress and BJP leaders and businessmen, Pratik Sinha, son of noted lawyer and human rights activist the late Mukul Sinha, has received a threat call allegedly from fugitive underworld don Ravi Pujari. The caller claiming to be Pujari on Tuesday threatened Sinha — who runs two websites stated to be critical of the government — to “stop writing or else you would be shot dead”. Sinha wrote an application to the city police on Wednesday and informed them about the threat call. He is the latest in the series of businessmen and politicians to have received threat calls allegedly from the gangster suspected to be hiding in Australia. Earlier this week, Congress MLA from the Panchmahals C K Raulji had received threat text messages.

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“The call came on the phone number previously used by my father. After his demise, we have transferred the number on my mother’s name. On Tuesday, I received call on this number and the caller claimed himself to be don Ravi Pujari,” Sinha told The Indian Express. He said that “the caller spoke in Hindi and said ‘Ravi Pujari bol raha hoon. Suna hai ye naam (Ravi Pujari Speaking, have you heard this name)’. When I told him that I don’t recognise his name, he threatened ‘likhna band kar de nahi toh goli maar dunga (stop writing or else I would kill you)’.” Sinha currently runs two websites — Truth of Gujarat and a web-based news portal Alt News where his posts are critical of the government. Deputy Commissioner of

Police Vidhi Chaudhari said: “He (Sinha) has said that he received the call at around 11.30 am on Tuesday by a caller claiming to be Ravi Pujari from Australia who threatened him to stop writing. We have forwarded the application to the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) which is investigating several such threat calls in the name of Pujari.” On Tuesday, the Navsari district police had arrested one Akhtar Merchant from Mumbai for making extortion calls in the name of Pujari to BJP member of Navsari municipality Premchand Lalwani, in the name of Ravi Pujari.

Earlier this week, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Shankarsinh Vaghela also raised the issue of threat calls to 10 Congress leaders in the state, purportedly by Pujari. Gurudas Kamat, Shaktisinh Gohil, C K Raulji, Amit Chavda, Hirabhai Patel and Govanbhai Rabari among other Congress leaders reportedly have received such threat calls from Pujari.

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