The Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) of the Mumbai crime brancharrested gangster Ravi Pujari on Thursday in connection with an extortion case, where he allegedly made multiple threatening calls to Bollywood choreographer Remo D’Souza and his wife. Pujari was produced before the court and remanded in police custody till January 27.
Pujari was extradited in 2020 from Senegal in West Africa, almost 25 years after leaving the country, and has since been in prison for multiple cases.
In this case, the AEC had arrested two accused, including film producer Satyendra Tyagi, in March 2018 on charges of extortion after director-choreographer Remo D’Souza, who was also his business partner, complained that Tyagi had allegedly sought help from gangster Pujari to resolve a financial dispute related to a film.
According to the police, D’souza’s wife Lizelle registered a case of extortion and threats at Amboli police station in March 2018. The case was transferred to the AEC crime branch for investigation. An FIR was registered after Pujari made phone calls to them. Tyagi was arrested for Delhiand after his interrogation, his associate Kamalsingh Vijaysingh Rajput alias Raju was also arrested. Pujari was shown as a wanted accused.
D’Souza and Tyagi jointly produced the film “The Death of Loving” in 2014. Since then, the film has not been released and is stuck in the censor board. A dispute arose between D’Souza and Tyagi over professional issues and Tyagi allegedly started demanding a no-objection certificate from D’Souza for the film or his money which he had invested in the film. To recover his money, Tyagi allegedly contacted gangster Ravi Pujari and on Tyagi’s behalf, Pujari made multiple threatening calls to D’souza and his wife between August 2017 and January 2018. Pujari allegedly threatened to give an NOC to Tyagi and pay him Rs 50 lakh in extortion money, a police officer said.
A police officer said Tyagi had allegedly registered an FIR against D’Souza in Ghaziabad UP in 2017, alleging that he had received threat calls from another gangster at the behest of D’Souza. There were several allegations between them and we will now investigate the matter in detail as Pujari has been detained, a police officer said.
