After his escape to Hong Kong in 1997, gangster Kumar Pillai, assumed the role of a model citizen, paying taxes, and filing income tax returns every year, earning himself citizenship of the country in seven years.
His status as a citizen proved to be a hurdle for the Mumbai Police in his extradition, as a court in Singapore was reluctant to hand him over, unless ample evidence was produced, officials told The Hindu on Tuesday.
Pillai, who is wanted for several crimes in Mumbai, was arrested in Singapore in January, after which the process of his extradition began. The case was heard by a Singapore court, where the Mumbai Police Crime Branch had to argue for his extradition.
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“After fleeing to Hong Kong in 1997, Pillai got in touch with some of his friends with whom he had studied in college. With their help, he set up an electronic goods business in Hong Kong and registered his name as Krishnan Pillai there. He kept shuttling between Hong Kong and Singapore as his wife and daughter stay in Singapore. After seven years of staying there, paying taxes and filing income tax returns, he got citizenship, which became an obstacle for us when we applied for his extradition,” said a Crime Branch officer.
The officer said that the Crime Branch then furnished scores of documents, including his birth certificate and a copy of a voter’s list from the 1990s, which had his name, to prove that the Hong Kong citizen, known as Krishnan Pillai, was actually Kumar Krishna Pillai of Indian origin. As per the Singapore government records, Pillai was a Hong Kong citizen, regularly visiting Singapore and the CB had to prove otherwise.
The second set of documents was his entire dossier: his foray into crime in the early 90s, his escape from India in 1997, and a Red Corner Notice issued in his name in 2012.
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After several months of arguing in the court, the Crime Branch was finally granted permission to extradite him earlier this month, after which a team of three officers and two constables were sent to Singapore to bring him to India.
“This is the first case in two decades where the Mumbai Police have by itself extradited a wanted fugitive. In all of the earlier cases, help had to be sought from central agencies and ministries,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sanjay Saxena.
The police have obtained Pillai’s custody in connection with an attempt to murder case in Vikhroli in 2009, in which his associates had allegedly shot at a builder who refused to pay Rs. 50 lakh to him as extortion money. The builder survived and a case was subsequently registered against Pillai.
The police arrested five of his associates, who allegedly committed the crime at his behest, and they were convicted under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act in 2015. Officials said the Crime Branch will first probe his role in this case and then move on to other cases.
“We are also investigating whether he has committed any crimes that were not reported to us,” Mr. Saxena said.
Source said that in preliminary questioning, Pillai has claimed that he has not been involved in any offence after his flight to Hong Kong, and that his former associates have only been using his name to extort money in Mumbai.
He paid taxes,
filed returns and earned Hong Kong citizenship, which became a hurdle