Don’s confession offers glimpse into underworld

MUMBAI: Ravi Pujari, one of the country’s most notorious gangsters, a fugitive for 25 years before he was brought back from Senegal in 2019, operated his network in Mumbai through a man based in Iran and another contact based in Malaysia, while in India, close associate Yusuf Bachkana provided shooters and probable targets, the 53-yearold’s confession read.

Pujari’s statement also revealed that Guru Satam, a wanted criminal, was in Durban in South Africa while gangster Prasad Pujari was in China. Prasad Pujari is wanted in several extortion cases and attempt to murder cases. Guru Satam, a trusted associate of don Chhota Rajan, is accused of several extortion, murder and attempt to murder cases in Mumbai.

HT has seen a copy of the confession which Pujari recorded before a deputy commissioner of police in Mumbai on March 4, 2021 — it would be a key piece of evidence in his trial before the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court, which is yet to begin.

There are 200 cases against Pujari, who is lodged in a prison in Karnataka, where the most number of cases are registered. He was also arrested by the Mumbai police last February in connection with a firing outside the Gajalee Hotel in Vile Parle on October 22, 2016. There are 51 cases registered against him in Mumbai, including murder, extortion and shootouts; provisions of the stringent MCOCA have been applied in 20 of these.

Pujari, whose primary source of income was extortion, is also suspected of attempting to extort filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt in 2006, among other personalities.

In 2016, some members of his gang were convicted by a MCOCA court for killing two engineers at a construction site. In 2018, student-activist Shehla Rashid also filed a complaint stating that the gangster had threatened her and other activists, Umar Khalid and Jignesh Mevani, and posted a text message purportedly sent by Pujari.

The statement to the Mumbai police reveals how gangster Raviprakash Sulya Pujari, known in the Mumbai’s underworld as Ravi Pujari, ran his extortion racket from the Senegalese capital of Dakar, where he had been living with his wife and children since 2014.

Pujari managed a network of foot soldiers in Mumbai as well as several individuals who helped him collect contact numbers of possible targets including Bollywood personalities, builders, hoteliers and other businessmen.

Two individuals helped Pujari stay connected: Shekhar Pujari from Malaysia and a certain Jalal (the son of a bakery owner in Bandra) based in Iran and also received extortion money through them by Hawala channels. “My old friend Yusuf Bachkana (a Chhota Rajan gang member) was in constant touch with me when he was lodged in jail at Dharwad in Karnataka,” said the statement. “Bachkana used to provide me contacts of new shooters and also used to look after my finances.”

“I used apps to make call to members of my gang and also for making extortion calls,” Pujari’s confession read. “Besides, I also used to send messages to Jalal and Shekhar Pujari to make extortion calls in India by using voice mail box numbers and used to check with them by making internet calls.”

Pujari’s use of technology was well known among the police – he frequently used the voice over internet protocol (VOIP) to make calls during his fugitive years so that he couldn’t be traced.

His statement read that while he was in exile, in 2000, he left the Chhota Rajan gang and started his own.

“I have successfully executed several shootouts with their help in Mumbai and elsewhere in India,” said the statement. Pujari, according to the confession, was also in touch with fugitive drug lord Vicky Goswami, who was arrested in Kenya in 2017 and extradited to the United States of America.

Pujari continued to make extortion calls and issue threats to businessmen from Mumbai and other parts of the country till the time he came to be arrested at Dakar on January 19, 2019. He was later extradited to India.

“A lot of businessmen paid me extortion money, which I invested to start a hotel in Senegalese capital Dakar,” the confession stated.

A gangster’s journey

Born on February 18, 1969 in Malpe, in the Udupi district of Karnataka, Pujari came to Mumbai as a two-year-old child, after his father was posted to the city.

He has four siblings — two brothers and two sisters — and they lived in Marol. Pujari studied up to class 10.

The confession also offered a comprehensive overview of Pujari’s descent into crime.

At 18, Pujari started visiting a local club where he came into contact with a local gangster named Shrikant Desai alias Shrikant Mama. Pujari had assaulted a local who ran a laundry business and had refused to contribute to the neighbourhood’s Hanuman Jayanti celebrations. This was the first criminal case in which the Andheri police arrested him together with four others. The year was 1987. When he was out on bail, Pujari kidnapped a Chhota Rajan gang member named Sudhakar who had demand extortion money from a hotelier. Desai was impressed and helped him out financially. On Desai’s instructions, Pujari started extorting courier service outlets outside Sahar cargo complex.

This was around the time when Dawood Ibrahim, Sharad Shetty and Chhota Rajan were part of same gang. Desai was closely associated with Shetty.

In 1992, after the communal riots that followed the demolition of Babri Masjid, Desai refused to help Ibrahim smuggle RDX. This material, which eventually found its way to India by sea, was used to trigger a series of deadly blasts in Mumbai in March 1993. Following these blasts, Rajan, Desai and several members of the gang separated from Ibrahim started working for Rajan, who styled himself as a “Hindu don”.

Desai was killed by the police in an “encounter” in 1993. Pujari suspected Bala Zalte, a gangster, of leaking Desai’s location to the police. “Soon, I came to know that Bala Zalte, who used to reside in our locality and work with us, had tipped off the police about Mama. Therefore, I killed Zalte in 1993 at Andheri. Mama’s wife, me and five others were arrested in the case by MIDC police,” the confession read.

After Desai’s death, Pujari started working for Rajan and is wanted in several murders, attempts to murder as well as threat calls. He fled the country in 1997 going first to Kathmandu, where he stayed for a year and a half, and later lived in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Uganda, South Africa and Burkina Faso. He eventually settled down in Dakar in 2014 along with his family comprising his wife, two daughters and son, all of whom had assumed Christian names.

Pujari called himself Anthony Fernandes, said to be inspired by the hit 1977 Bollywood film, Amar Akbar Anthony.

Validity of statement

Regarding the validity of a confessional statement, joint commissioner of police (Crime) Suhas Warke said that the confessional statement of an accused recorded under MCOCA holds strong evidential value. Police inspector Manish Shridhankar, head of the special MCOCA cell of Mumbai police, added, “The confessional statement of an accused recorded before a Dcp-rank officer holds key importance in the case.” Noted criminal lawyer Mahesh Mule, who has been dealing with cases registered under MCOCA, said that an accused’s confession forms part of crucial evidence to prove criminal conspiracy. “A statement is strong enough evidence to hold the accused, who has confessed, guilty of the crime. The key to its validity is its voluntariness. It must have been given without any prejudice,” he said.