IB help sought to nab Ravi Pujari

In order to snoop on gangster Ravi Pujari, the city police have accelerated efforts to seek the help of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Interpol to track his location. A detailed dossier about him along with more than 100 cellphone numbers through which he had been calling his targets have already been sent to ministry of external affairs.

Pujari, who is believed to be hiding in a foreign country, has given the city police a headache with his extortion of the builders, businessmen and film personalities.

The effort to seek the help of external agencies was first initiated during the tenure of then police commissioner Sanjeev Dayal, when Pujari had created havoc in the western suburbs, with at least three firing incidents recorded within a couple of months. The officials say that the efforts had slowed down later on when there was a lull in the gang’s activities over the past four months. But the efforts accelerated after when two of Pujari’s men pumped bullets into the two people working at an under construction site, which was developed by Sudhakar Shetty, the former owner of infamous Deepa bar.

The sources say that Pujari has been calling his targets through different cell phone numbers, which he changes after the call has been made to the target. Even in the Monday’s incident, when the police tried calling back on the cell phone number which was scribbled on a piece of paper, the number was found to be switched-off.

The sources say that Pujari has been making these calls using Internet phone services. And these foreign service providers don’t co-operate with the city police. Therefore, the police have decided to go through the proper protocol channel, the police sources add.