Gangster Ravi Pujari remanded to Mumbai Police custody till March 9

A Mumbai court on Tuesday remanded gangster Ravi Pujari to the custody of Mumbai Police till March 9 in connection with a case of firing in 2016.

Last week a Karnataka court granted permission to Mumbai Police to take into custody, Pujari who was extradited to India from Senegal in West Africa last year in February and was lodged in a jail in Karnataka.

Mumbai's Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Milind Bharambe said that Mumbai Police sought the custody of Pujari in connection with a firing incident that took place in October 2016 in the Ghazali Hotel in Ville Parle area.

Pujari has 49 cases registered against him in Mumbai police jurisdiction, out of which 26 of them are registered under the Maharashtra Control of Orgsed Crime Act (MCOCA). He is wanted in several heinous crimes like murder and extortion. There are other cases too against him in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) (Thane, Navi Mumbai, Palghar etc).

Pujari was produced before a special MCOCA court in Mumbai.

"Efforts are on to get his custody in connection with other cases also," Bharambe said.

The Mumbai Police said that the Karnataka police had not yet formally shared details from their investigation of Pujari, whether he had revealed anything about his crimes in Mumbai or not.

Bharambe said that earlier too that the Mumbai Police sought the custody of gangster Ravi Pujari

Bharambe said that Pujari was extradited in February 2020 from Senegal in 10 cases and the process for extradition in other cases is already in the process through the ministry of external affairs (MEA) and the ministry of home affairs (MHA).

The gangster parted ways with underworld don Chhota Rajan and had jumped bail after he was arrested in Senegal in 2019 and had escaped to South Africa, where he was involved in drug trafficking and extortion.

According to sources in the Indian intelligence, Ravi Pujari was hiding under the false identity of Anthony Fernandes, a Burkina Faso passport holder, in a remote village in South Africa.

( With inputs from ANI )