Ravi Pujari faces 34 cases in Mangaluru alone
Mangaluru: Notorious gangster Ravi Pujari, who has been extradited to India from Senegal, has 34 cases registered against him within the city police commissionerate.
Now in Bengaluru police custody for interrogation in connection with several cases there, Pujari faces cases relating to murder, murder attempt, extortion and threat calls in the city, police sources said.
Sources said the city police are trying to get Pujari for interrogation though it would take a while as the court has allowed Bengaluru police to keep him in custody for questioning and evidence taking for 15 days.
Most of the cases in the city against him, 28 of them, are in connection with threat calls.
He had allegedly made threat calls in 2015 to the then state ministers B Ramanath Rai and Abhayachandra Jain, demanding immediate arrest of the accused in the murder of Bajrang Dal worker Prashanth Poojary.
All the cases against Pujari in the city were registered between 2007 and 2018.
Cases involving murder, death threats and shootouts are among the cases to be investigated, the sources said.
A total of 28 cases of death threat calls, one of murder, three of shootouts, one of abduction and a case of funding his associates lodged in prison are the crimes being probed by the city police.
The cases are now pending in courts at different stages of trial.
Cases of making threat calls to businessmen using his associates demanding protection money have been registered at Moodbidri, Kavoor, Kadri, Konaje, Barke and Urwa police stations.
Some of his associates were imprisoned in 2012 in connection with threat calls to a businessman from Kinnigoli.
The case relating to providing them money while in prison was also registered in the same year.
Pujari, wanted in many cases including extortion and murder in different parts of the country, including Karnataka and who had been on the run for over 15 years, was deported to Senegal following his arrest and later extradited
He had jumped bail in Senegal last year after being arrested there.
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IAF helicopter roped in to douse forest fires in Uttarakhand
Dehradun(PTI): An IAF helicopter was pressed into service on Saturday to extinguish the raging forest fires in Uttarakhand's Nainital district, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said.
The situation in the district worsened on Friday with the flames reaching the High Court Colony in the Pines area.
An MI-17 helicopter collected water in a Bambi Bucket from Bhimtal lake and poured it over the burning forests of Pines, Bhumiadhar, Jyolikot, Narayan Nagar, Bhawali, Ramgarh and Mukteshwar areas of the district, officials said.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said all efforts are being made to bring the fires under control and it will be done soon.
"An IAF helicopter has already started dousing the fires," he said.
Dhami said he will hold a meeting with forest officials in Haldwani later in the day to review the situation.
Three people were arrested in Rudraprayag on Friday while trying to set fire to forests.
As many as 31 fresh incidents of forest fire were reported from various parts of the state on Friday, destroying 33.34 hectares of forest land, according to officials.
The fire that broke out in the forest near Nainital took a horrific form on Friday, posing a threat to the residents of High Court Colony. It also affected traffic movement in the area.
Besides forest department staff, Army personnel are involved in efforts to control the fire.
Anil Joshi, a resident of the Pines area and assistant registrar of the Uttarakhand High Court said, "The fire had engulfed an old and vacant house located near The Pines on Friday. It did not cause any damage to High Court Colony but it came dangerously close to the buildings."
The district administration has banned boating in Naini lake in view of the blaze.
Nainital Divisional Forest Officer Chandrashekhar Joshi said, "We have deployed 40 Manora Range personnel and two forest rangers to extinguish the fire."
From November 1 last year till now, a total of 575 incidents of forest fire have been reported in Uttarakhand, affecting 689.89 hectares of forest area and costing the state than Rs 14 lakh.
