Sushree Mohanty
Mumbai Sessions Court has remanded Ravi Pujari to police custody until March 9, 2021, in the 2016 Ghazali café gun-firing case.
Pujari is an extradited criminal who is accused of committing 49 different crimes in the city.
An order was given by a special court in Bangalore on February 20, 2021, that allowed his custody to be transferred to the Mumbai police after they produced reports before the Bangalore court.
The reports included authorization conceded by Senegal officers for examination in his Mumbai cases and furthermore a warrant granting his summoning before Mumbai court.
The Mumbai police had been denied his custody previously by the Bangalore court as Senegal Officers had allowed his examination in the Karnataka cases only as only such reports were filed while seeking his custody.
The Mumbai police then moved a permission request towards Senegal Authorities through the Ministry of External Affairs and got authorization for examination in his Mumbai cases.
Pujari, who was wanted for quite a while, was extradited in February 2020 from Senegal. After his extradition, he was remanded in judicial custody under Banglore prison.
The Mumbai police demanded his custody for the 2016 Gajalee gun-firing case where he and his gang members had fired at the owner of the restaurant and were demanding extortion.
Seven people were detained for the act under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) while Pujari was named as a wanted criminal.
Ravi Pujari, after disassociating himself from Chhota Rajan, had jumped bail after he was detained in Senegal in 2019 and had fled to South Africa, where he was engaged in drug dealing and extortion.
As per sources in the Indian Intelligence Service, he was living under the false identity of Anthony Fernandes, a Burkina Faso visa holder, in a town in South Africa.
Ravi is believed to be sent for interrogation by a special team for cases against him in Mumbai. He will be detained in the Crawford Market Police Headquarters until his custody tenure.