4 from Pujari gang held over extortion

In a major jolt to the Suresh Pujari gang, the Thane anti-extortion cell arrested four persons for allegedly threatening to kill a hotel owner and extort '5 lakh from him. According to the police, the owner, an Ambernath resident had been receiving threat calls from Pujari gang members over the past three to four weeks.

“In the past one month we have arrested eight gang members of Pujari, including those who were arrested yesterday. We are still looking for a few other gang members and soon we will arrest them too,” said Thane Deputy Ccommissioner of Police Parag Manere.

According to the police, the Pujari gang had threatened the complainant saying his family members would be killed if their demands were not met.

The complainant was threatened that he would be killed just as a cable operator was killed recently over an extortion demand.

Shaken by this threat, the complainant and his family had approached the police about a week ago. Ambernath police registered the complaint and the anti-extortion cell (AEC) started probing the case.

“We had been tracking the movements of the Pujari gang through our technical intelligence system and picked up the accused,” Mr Manere said. The arrested were identified as Dharmesh Gauda, 31, Rohit Patel 25, Nitin Paradkar 42, Aanand Reddy 30.