Gangster Yogish new challenge for State police

After underworld foreign-based operators Ravi Poojari and Bannanje Raja, another gangster Yogish alias Kali Yogish, suspected to be operating from Austria, has become a nuisance for the police.

Yogish allegedly called and threatened the Diwakar Shastri family (Shastri’s wife Premalatha has filed a rape case against the Ramachandrapur Mutt seer) a few days ago.

Yogish faces 18 cases of extortion, mainly in Dakshina Kannada district. He faces 12 cases in Dakshina Kannada, four cases at Manjeshwara in Kerala and one each in Karkala and Bangalore. This year alone, the Dakshina Kannada police have registered four cases against him. The Dakshina Kannada and Udupi police had initiated a crackdown on Raja’s associates after the Ankola shootout, in which miner R N Nayak was killed in December 2013. The associates of Raja were arrested in this case. During the drive against several gangsters, associates of Raja and Poojari were arrested. It came to light that the gangsters used to contact undertrials at various prisons in the State and also in neighbouring states.  

When the calls became rampant in Dakshina Kannada, Home Minister K J George held a meeting with senior police officials in July this year and decided to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to tackle underworld activity.

“As of now, the Internal Security Division is probing underworld-related cases. A special unit is looking into all the cases in the state. Raja and Ravi Poojari were making calls through VoIP (Voice-over-Internet-protocol). It appears as if the calls were made from abroad. We have a strong suspicion that Yogish has parted ways with Poojari and is making calls independently. In some cases, he has interfered in family disputes and made calls, asking people to withdraw cases,” an official said.

Meanwhile, the Bangalore police are collecting voice samples of Yogish for further probe. Police suspect that Yogish, unlike Poojari, does not believe in making only extortion calls.
“He is known for making calls without there being any money involved. He has done this in the past in Mangalore and Kerala. We are verifying the calls made to the victim in the Shastri case,” an official said. The official said that gunman security has been provided to the Shastri family.

“We have also asked them to keep the police informed when they move out of the house in view of the threat,” he said.