Film producer borrowed friend’s revolver, staged firing on self to frame director: Mumbai police

After interrogating film producer Satyendra Tyagi — arrested recently for hiring gangster Ravi Pujari to threaten Bollywood choreographer-turned-film director Remo D’Souza and recover some disputed money — the police said his claim that someone had fired at him three months ago is false. In fact, Tyagi borrowed a friend’s revolver and staged the firing to frame D’Souza, sources from Mumbai crime branch said.

In 2014, Tyagi and D’Souza came together to make a film ‘Death Of Amar’, starring Rajeev Khandelwal, Zareen Khan and Prashant Narayanan. The duo got into a dispute pertaining to the issuance of a No Objection Certificate (NOC), when Tyagi wanted to release the film as soon as possible, while D’souza wanted to add some more elements to the film.

Tyagi then allegedly started demanding that either D’Souza give him the NOC or the Rs5crore that he had invested in the movie. Tyagi alleges that D’Souza’s company has refused to pay him this money.

“To recover his money, Tyagi contacted gangster Ravi Pujari, who first put his man Prasad Pujari on the job,” said a crime branch officer, requesting anonymity. “From August 2017 to January 2018, D’Souza and his wife received multiple threat calls from Pujari.”

Initially, Prasad called D’Souza, but when his calls were ignored, Pujari himself started making the threat calls to the couple, demanding that they return Rs5 crore to Tyagi, give him the NOC as well as give Pujari himself Rs50 lakh.

D’Souza then approached the police, and Tyagi was arrested soon after.

Since his arrest, Tyagi has been claiming that D’Souza was threatening him through Prasad to settle the dispute. Tyagi also registered an FIR against D’Souza in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, alleging that he had received threat calls from a Prasad Pujari at the behest of D’Souza.

Tyagi also claimed that gunshots were fired at his car and that Prasad had claimed responsibility for the shooting. Later, he uploaded a telephonic conversation between himself and Prasad on YouTube.

The local police, however, had not found his allegations credible and no progress had been made in the case filed by Tyagi.

“Now, the Mumbai police’s probe has revealed that Tyagi staged the firing and for that he borrowed a licenced revolver from one of his friends. He did so to frame D’Souza,” an officer privy to the probe said.

Investigations have also revealed that Tyagi was in contact with Pujari for a long time, and had even met his close aide Kamiruddin, who was arrested later in another case.