Pujari's henchmen admit involvement in hotel firing

Mumbai: The arrest of fugitive gangster Suresh Pujari's five henchmen on Saturday has revealed that they were allegedly involved in the Nalasopara hotel firing in May last year. During the interrogation on Sunday, the accused allegedly admitted that they were part of a special module that only spotted and gathered information of targets for extortion. Pujari's gang has suffered a setback after the arrests of his five henchmen as they collected information of potential targets and passed on information to the gangster.

The group never made extortion calls or collected money for the gang. They had allegedly passed on details of around 25 targets mostly restaurateurs from Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai area to Pujari.

The arrested accused have been identified as Harish Kotian, Sanket Dalvi, Prathmesh Kadam, Noor Khan and Aniket Thakur. Murder, attempt to murder and other cases have been registered against all the accused.

The group was only specialised to gather information only and hence their identities remained under the wraps for almost a year even after the crime branch cracked the Nalasopara firing case and arrested five shooters. The new set of accused will now be tried in the case too, officials said.  

"The arrested accused kept in touch with Pujari via internet calls and hence they could not be intercepted. Pujari would arrange people from the interior of the state for every role, and nobody would be made to multitask. This would help in keeping one line of activity insulated in case of police action," said a crime branch officer.

The recent arrests have come as a major setback for Pujari, who is considered to be the only menace for the law and order agencies currently. The arrests were made after keeping a tab from an establishment in Fort area in south Mumbai after the owner complained of extortion calls from Pujari.

After the arrest of one of the accused who was loitering suspiciously, other accused from the module were arrested.