A STRONG team of Nagpur City Police with assistance of their Belagavi (Karnataka) counterparts, on Thursday, conducted search operation inside the Hindalga Central Jail.The team succeeded in recovering two cellphones and two SIM cards used by prisoner Jayesh Pujari alias Pujara alias Jayesh Kantha for making threat calls to harm Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari for extorting crores of rupees from him. On March 21, Pujari hadmade three threatening calls tothe public relations office of Gadkari and demanded Rs 10crore. Earlier too, using thesame cellphones and SIMcards, Pujari, who is undergoing life imprisonment at Hindalga Central Jail inKarnataka’s Belagavi after beingconvicted in a murder case, had also made threat calls tothe Union Minister’s publicrelations office demanding Rs100 crore, on January 14. Pujari had also claimed that he wasa member of Dawood Ibrahim’sgang. For not harming Gadkari, Pujari had asked Gadkari’s staff to deposit amount in theaccount of one Razia throughUPI. Razia, who is an Event Manager based in Mangaluru, is allegedly the girlfriend of acriminal lodged in HindalgaJail with Pujari. 

 

After being convicted in a murder case, Pujari was sentenced to death. Later, the death sentence was converted to life imprisonment. Speaking to mediapersons, Commissioner of Police Amitesh Kumar confirmed that two mobile phones and SIM cards were seized from Hindalga Central Jail used by Pujari for making threat calls to harm Gadkari. “We are completing the necessary legal procedure to bring Pujari to Nagpur shortly on production warrant,” he added. Kumar said that the police would seek remand of Pujari for his custodial interrogation to conduct an in depth probe so as to come to the logical conclusion in the case. About the involvement of the Razia, the City Police Chief said, “Our team met her but no criminal culpability was found during questioning.” However, he said, police would investigate the case from all possible angles.