Ravi Pujari faces 34 cases in Mangaluru alone

Ravi Pujari who faces cases pertaining to murder, extortion and threat calls, has 34 cases against him within the Mangaluru city alone.

Mangaluru: Notorious gangster Ravi Pujari, who has been extradited to India from Senegal, has 34 cases registered against him within the city police commissionerate.

Now in Bengaluru police custody for interrogation in connection with several cases there, Pujari faces cases relating to murder, murder attempt, extortion and threat calls in the city, police sources said.

Sources said the Mangaluru city police are trying to get Pujari for interrogation though it would take a while as the court has allowed Bengaluru police to keep him in custody for questioning and evidence taking for 15 days.

Most of the cases in the city against him, 28 of them, are in connection with threat calls. He had allegedly made threat calls in 2015 to the then state ministers B Ramanath Rai and Abhayachandra Jain, demanding immediate arrest of the accused in the murder of Bajrang Dal worker Prashanth Poojary.

All the cases against Pujari in the city were registered between 2007 and 2018. Cases involving murder, death threats and shootouts are among the cases to be investigated, the sources said.

A total of 28 cases of death threat calls, one of murder, three of shootouts, one of abduction and a case of funding his associates lodged in prison are the crimes being probed by the city police. The cases are now pending in courts at different stages of the trial.

Cases of making threat calls to businessman using his associates demanding protection money have been registered at Moodbidri, Kavoor, Kadri, Konaje, Barke and Urwa police stations.

Some of his associates were imprisoned in 2012 in connection with threat calls to a businessman from Kinnigoli.The case relating to providing them money while in prison was also registered in the same year.

Pujari, wanted in many cases including extortion and murder in different parts of the country, including Karnataka and who had been on the run for over 15 years, was deported to Senegal following his arrest and later extradited.

He had jumped bail in Senegal last year after being arrested there. (PTI report)