Police find Lashkar-e-Taiba recruiter Afsar Pasha behind threat calls made to Nitin Gadkari

Police in Maharashtra's Nagpur have  found links  between Afsar Pasha, who is currently detained in Karnataka after being found guilty in a case involving the Bengaluru terror attack, and Jayesh Pujari, who was arrested earlier this year for allegedly making threatening phone calls to Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

Pujari, alias Kantha and Shakir, was earlier lodged in the Belagavi prison along with Pasha, he said. Pujari made a threat call to Gadkari's public relations office in Nagpur on January 14, demanding Rs 100 crore and claiming to be a member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang. At that time, he was lodged in a jail in neighbouring Karnataka, police have said. He made another call on March 21, threatening to harm the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Nagpur if Rs 10 crore were not paid to him.

The investigation by the Nagpur police in this matter revealed a connection between Pujari and terrorist Bashiruddin Noor Ahmed alias Afsar Pasha, who was earlier involved in terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir, a top official of Nagpur police said. Pujari had ties with Pasha, convicted in the 2012 case of recruiting terrorists for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Jammu and Kashmir, he said.

Pasha was also involved in the December 2005 terror attack at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru and is currently serving a jail term in Belagavi, the official said, adding that a Nagpur police team has been sent to Belagavi to arrest Pasha.