Sleuths investigating the recent extortion and firing incidents by members of the Ravi Pujari gang revealed that the gangster maintained a high level of secrecy about his operations and none of the members of one module were aware about the others. This was done to protect his base of leg-workers from being caught in case one of the module gets caught.
This modus operandi is similar to the one of terror groups. Each module is assigned a different task and is kept in the dark about others.
The first module which was busted on September 1 by a special police team in which three Ravi Pujari gang members were arrested.
They had at least 23 offenses of threatening, theft, robberies registered against them across various police stations in and around the city. Two days later, another three members of the same module were arrested.
The police had traced these accused based on earlier investigation in which a Panvel based developer was fired upon by Pujari men earlier this year. Few of those arrested were wanted in that case, the officials said.
“Though we first suspected that the first module may be aware about the firing cases in the western suburbs, this was not the case. They were as clueless as us,” said a police official.
Investigation reached a standstill until another module was busted by the crime branch on September 5, in which five persons were arrested and their handler shot dead in an encounter. The investigators said that this module was responsible for the first three cases of extortion-firing cases in the western suburbs in June and July.
“The second module was also unaware about the fourth firing case on a builder in Santa Cruz in the last week of August,” added the officer.
The third and the last module was finally arrested by Thane police on September 7.
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