Pujari men held

MUMBAI: Two persons including a owner of a chain of wine shops from Dombivli who used to pass on the target inside information (telephone, cell phone numbers and addresses of victims) to fugitive gangster Ravi Pujari who in turn used to threatened and extort money, were nabbed by the city crime branch.
Police on Tuesday arrested Dayanand Jatan,a front man of Pujari who had been in regular touch with fugitive gangster for past 20 years.His associates identified as Bipin Patil who has a chain of wine shops in Dombivli, Kalyan and Thane belt. With their arrest police claims to have totally zeroed in the Pujari faction in Thane belt. Jatan and Patil became the 14th person to be arrested of Pujari gang.
Interestingly duo had recently passed on information of builder Raju Patil, the brother of ex MLA Ramesh Patil. ``Raju patil has been carrying a huge project in Dombivli and this information was provided by Bipin Patil and Jatan to Pujari who started calling up Raju Patil and threatening for extortion.’’ Said Vinayak Vast, senior inspector of Anti Extortion Cell. The modus operandi of the duo was not only to pass off information of possible targets, but also used to choose people with criminal backgrounds so to steam them into gang. During probe it has transpired that duo through a hawala channel had send Rs 15 lakhs to Pujari collected from extortion.
Bipin Patil has chain of wine shop and recently he wanted to open a new shop at Lodha park in Dombivli for which there was lot of objection. However in melee Patil learnt that some body else was likely to open the wine shop, Patil passed on this new shop owner’s number to Pujari who threatened him from opening the shop. Likewise whoever became obstacles in their way, they passed on their number and exaggerated about his wealth to Pujari who than threatened them said Dhananjay Kulkarni, deputy commissioner of police (crime). Joint commissioner of police crime Atul Kulkarni said that they have invoked the accused under the stringent act so that it sends a strong message to other gang members.