Ravi Pujari arrest: Kudla police busy documenting cases

Mangaluru: With the arrest of notorious underworld fugitive Ravi Pujari in Senegal, the Mangaluru City police have an uphill task as he is booked in more than 30 cases in Mangaluru alone. While some of the cases ended with convictions and acquittals, several cases are still under trial, and many others are still in the nascent stage.
Ravi Pujari, born at Malpe Kalmadi in Udupi district, was arrested by the Senegal police in West Africa last week. He is also known as a ‘Hindu Don,’ and has been booked in many conspiracy to commit murder and extortion cases in Mangaluru, according to sources.

Prominent among these cases are the HML extortion case in 2008, the advocate Naushad Kashimji murder case in 2009, and a case pertaining to Bharathi Builders and Developers in 2014. In the murder of advocate Naushad, the police chargesheet alleged that Ravi Pujari had engaged his aides Dinesh, Pratap and Ritesh, to murder Naushad for appearing in a criminal case on behalf of Rashid Malbari, an alleged associate of fugitive Dawood Ibrahim.

“Among the more than 30 cases where Ravi Pujari is booked for conspiracy to commit murder, some of them are closed. People involved in them have been convicted or acquitted. Mangaluru police are now busy in documenting all the cases registered against Pujari since several years,” said a highly-placed source from the Mangaluru City Commissionerate, who wished to remain anonymous.

The investigation is expected to take a long time as the cases are booked in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Gujarat. The most high profile and prominent cases against Pujari are booked in Maharashtra, which is followed by Karnataka. “Soon after his arrest in Senegal, some states have asked for Pujari’s custody. We too have asked for the same,” the source added.

Pujari had new identity

Ravi Pujari, during his stay in Senegal, had changed his identity to Anthony Fernadez. Apart from it, he also got Burkina Faso passports for his entire family. Sources added that he was running a chain of restaurants in Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. He would communicate with his associates, targets and others over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in order to not be tracked by investigating agencies.

Bariatric surgery

Pujari had undergone bariatric surgery recently to control his burgeoning girth and increasing weight. Sources who were pursuing Pujari since the past six months, said because of the surgery being performed, his weight reduced a lot, but that he looked “puffed”.