Gangster Ravi Pujari, who was arrested in Senegal in January last year, was brought to Bengaluru by Karnataka police on Sunday night. A team headed by State Additional General of Police (ADGP) Intelligence Amar Kumar Pandey, who has been tracking Pujari since his arrest last year, and Joint Commissioner of Police (CCB) Sandip Patil brought the gangster to the city for interrogation.
"We will produce Ravi Pujari in the magistrate's court today. He is fit and cooperating with the investigation," said Pandey.
Pujari was arrested last year by a joint team of RAW, the Mangalore police and Senegalese police. To evade deportation, however, he got himself implicated in a case of fraud.
Pujari, who had shifted to South Africa with his wife Padma and three children, was using a fake identity; he was Anthony Fernandes, with a Burkina Faso passport.
According to a statement by the Karnataka government, he was running a chain of restaurants—'Namaste India'—in the region.
Pujari, who had fled the country in 1990, hails from Udupi in Dakshina Kannada district. He is a wanted criminal in at least 40 criminal cases, including murder, attempt to murder, extortion, kidnapping and threat calls to celebrities and politicians.
