Mumbai. Mumbai Police has brought back here the notorious gangster Prasad Vittal Pujari, who was arrested in February 2023 after an Interpol notice. This is the first deportation of a wanted fugitive from China. Officials said this on Saturday. A team of Mumbai Police officers reached here by a morning flight along with Pujari (44), a resident of Mumbai’s Vikhroli suburb. He was kept in the police lockup before his formal arrest by the Anti-Extortion Cell of the Crime Branch.
Pujari was later produced before a special court under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA), which sent him to 14-day police custody. Pujari was living in China and Hong Kong for the last 20 years using various aliases like Subhash, Siddharth Shetty, Sid, Johnny etc.
He ran extortion rackets targeting politicians, businessmen, film personalities, producer-directors and other celebs using international SIM cards and telephone numbers from his bases. Police said there were at least eight cases of major crimes registered against him in various police stations in Mumbai.
Pujari, a resident of Tagore Nagar in Vikhroli suburb, started his gangland career nearly three decades ago with the gang of Kumar Pillai and Chhota Rajan Nikhalje (both exiled). However, after differences arose with him, Pujari separated to form his own independent ‘mafia company’. His aim was to extort money from big businessmen in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane by threatening them.
At one time in 2019, he was involved in the incident of firing on Shiv Sena leader Chandrakant Jadhav. Jadhav survived this incident, but it increased the fear among the rich and powerful people. Following a tip-off from Interpol and acting on the Red Corner Notice of 2012, Pujari was arrested in Hong Kong in February 2023 on charges of possessing a fake passport.
The priest married a Chinese woman and is the father of a child. He was arrested when he was planning to fly from Hong Kong to Shenzhen. Last year, as soon as Mumbai Police learned about Pujari’s arrest, it initiated deportation/extradition proceedings and finally succeeded in bringing him back from China after a year of efforts.
In 2020, Mumbai Police had arrested Pujari’s mother Indira Vitthal Pujari for her alleged involvement in the kidnapping-cum-extortion case of a Vikhroli builder for ransom of Rs 10 lakh and running her racket by proxy. After Kumar Pillai’s extradition by Singapore, Pujari took over his business and started running a racket of firing, kidnapping, assassination attempts, death threats and extortion targeting prominent personalities in and around Mumbai.
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Tags: China, Interpol, mumbai police
FIRST PUBLISHED: March 23, 2024, 22:34 IST