Gangster Prasad Pujari remanded to police custody in 2019 attempt to murder case

A special MCOCA holiday court on Saturday remanded fugitive gangster Subhash Vitthal aka Prasad Pujari to police custody for 14 days in connection with an alleged attempt on the life of Shiv Sena leader Chandrashekhar Jadhav from Vikhroli

MUMBAI: A special MCOCA holiday court on Saturday remanded fugitive gangster Subhash Vitthal aka Prasad Pujari to police custody for 14 days in connection with an alleged attempt on the life of Shiv Sena leader Chandrashekhar Jadhav from Vikhroli.

Mumbai, India - March 23, 2024: Gangster Prasad Pujari along with Mumbai Crime branch officials at the Mumbai international airport T2 in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, March 23, 2024. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

Pujari has been extradited to India nearly a year after he was arrested by authorities in Hong Kong in connection with a fake passport case in February 2023. A senior police officer said that the gangster had settled in Shenzhen, China along with his Chinese wife and a 5-year-old son. He had joined his boss, gangster Kumar Pillai’s business of exporting mobile accessories and was arrested when he visited Hong Kong for business purposes.

“After his arrest, based on information provided by Indian Interpol to Chinese law enforcement agencies, Pujari was shifted to Beijing detention centre from where he was handed over to Indian authorities recently,” said a senior police officer. He was brought back to the city by a Thai Airways flight which landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai early in the morning on Saturday.

“We worked for the last ten months and coordinated with every central agency to bring back Pujari in a very confidential manner. He was arrested last in India in 2002 and fled the country in 2005. He has eight criminal cases, including two murders and four under the MCOCA, registered against him,” said Lakhmi Gautam, joint commissioner of police, Crime Branch.

“In six cases, trials are going on and in one case some accused are convicted. The latest case against Pujari was registered in April 2023, for threatening a complainant in an earlier case to not appear before court,” the joint CP added.

When he was produced before a holiday MCOCA court on Saturday, Pujari, however, claimed that he agreed to return to India, as his mother and brother had been falsely implicated by the police. The court remanded him to 14 days police custody.

Born in a middle-class family in Tagore Nagar in Vikhroli East, Pujari was living in Beijing with his Chinese wife and their five-year-old son. He was seen frequently with underworld don Kumar Pillai’s men during his youth before he became a trusted associate of the gangster.

Implicated in at least eight cases of murder, attempt to murder and extortion by Vikhroli, Ghatkopar, LT Marg police stations in Mumbai, he spent two-and-half years in jail with an attempt to murder case before being acquitted in September 2005 due to insufficient evidence.

Pujari subsequently fled to Hong Kong, where Pillai established a raw material supply business as well as mobile accessories shops. He lived with Pillai initially and started getting into the construction business while also handling Pillai’s gang in India, said a crime branch official. In 2019, the anti-extortion cell of the Mumbai crime branch registered an attempt to murder case against him and eight associates after they tried to get Shiv Sena leader Chandrashekhar Jadhav in Tagore Nagar, Vikroli East, killed.

The anti-extortion cell arrested eight people from Mumbai, Thane, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi in connection with the case, while Pujari was absconding.

In 2020, another extortion case was registered against Pujari and his associates for threatening a Vikhroli-based builder and demanding ₹10 lakh from him. Unit 7 of the Crime Branch which was investigating the case, arrested Pujari’s cousin brother Sukesh Kumar from Mangaluru and his mother Indira from Mira Road on March 11, 2020, for allegedly giving money to his men to run an extortion racket.

The police subsequently invoked stringent provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against the gang members involved in the case.