KOCHI: The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Kerala Police on Wednesday brought gangster Ravi Pujari to Kochi from Bengaluru as part of the probe into the beauty parlour shooting case of 2018. After landing in the Kochi airport by 8.50pm, the officials took him to the ATS office in Nedumbassery, where he will be interrogated till June 8.
The sleuths will try to ferret out information from Pujari about the people tasked with recruiting the two youths who fired at the salon owned by model-actor Leena Maria Paul in December 2018. He will also be questioned about a few cases registered in Kasaragod in which his role is suspected. On Monday, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Kochi granted ATS custody of Pujari, who was lodged at a jail in Bengaluru, till June 8. Due to logistical issues, the team couldn’t bring Poojari to Kochi on Tuesday.
Kerala Police had been pursuing the extradition of Pujari relentlessly after he was intercepted following an Interpol request in 2019. After he was extradited to India in 2020, Kerala’s Crime Branch tried to get him in custody. “He had hundreds of cases registered against him in Karnataka and Maharashtra, compared to two cases in Kerala. So, it took more than one year for us to get his custody. However, we were the first to submit the documents to the Interpol for his extradition,” a former Crime Branch officer said.
Last year, the case was handed over to the ATS. The case pertains to the incident on December 15, 2018, when two assailants on a motorcycle fired at the beauty parlour owned by actor Leena Maria Paul at Panampilly Nagar. Later, Pujari called a TV channel and claimed the attack was carried out by him. He had sought money from the actor a month before the incident. The police could arrest three persons including two youths who had fired the bullets at the salon. Politician P C George had also claimed that he had received death threats from Pujari.