Plan to threaten Mumbai hotelier hatched in Mysore jail, say crime branch

MUMBAI: The city crime branch has found that the conspiracy to threaten a south Mumbai hotelier to hand over a prime plot in Nagpada for a throwaway price to a builder supported by fugitive gangster Ravi Pujari was hatched in a Mysore jail.
Sources said the builder had travelled to the Mysore jail to meet Pujari aide Yusuf Bachkana and request him to ask Pujari to help him settle the matter and gave the supari (contract) to threaten the hotelier.
Bachkana had also mediated with Pujari last year to bump off filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and son Rahul.
Last week, crime branch officers arrested Tariq Siddiqui and Abdullah Ahmed for threatening the hotelier to sell his 8,300 sq ft commercial space on the ground floor of Sutarwala chawl in Nagpada worth Rs 20 crore to the builder for Rs 4 crore. Cops learnt the builder and Tariq had travelled by air to Bangalore on February 26, to meet Backhana, who is serving life term in a murder case. “We have got the details of their travel and will soon take custody of Backhana. We plan to invoke MCOCA,” said K N N Prasanna, addl commissioner of police (crime).