Elusive for 13 yrs, associate of Ravi Pujari in police net

BENGALURU: A 45-year-old man has been arrested by Central Crime Branch police 13 years after he jumped bail in a double-murder allegedly commissioned by gangster Ravi Pujari.
Iqlaq Qureshi, a resident of Nagamangala in Mandya and from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, had been arrested for allegedly supplying two countrymade pistols to assailants who gunned down two persons in a real estate office at Mico Layout in February 2007.
Two months after his arrest, Qureshi walked out on bail in June 2007. As he jumped bail, courts had declared him an absconder. Police said he lived in the guise of a businessman dealing in food products at the time of his arrest.
Joint commissioner of police (crime) Sandeep Patil said they have to question Qureshi to know more about his journey over 13 years. "According to our information, Qureshi had recently shifted to Nagamangala. We traced him through local informants," he said.
Asked how Qureshi managed to avoid police for 13 years, a senior CCB officer said: "We have just taken him into custody. We shall collect all details. We found that he had left Karnataka after walking out on bail in 2007 and settled down in Maharashtra. However, his old links with Karnataka and old-time aides dragged him back. He lived in different places under different names."