Is notorious underworld don Ravi Poojary taking a special interest in fringe right-wing groups and elements in coastal Karnataka? This is the moot point of the probe by the Karnataka police into the murder of 29-year-old Bajrang Dal activist Prashanth Poojary.
Shockingly, two State Ministers claimed they had received threat calls, one of them even identified the caller as Ravi Poojary, and alleged that the caller “warned him against protecting the accused in the murder and issued a death threat if he continued to do so.” Both Ministers — K. Abhaychandra Jain and B. Ramanath Rai — hail from coastal Karnataka. Mr. Rai confirmed to The Hindu that he received a threat call, but did not identify the caller and said he would not file a complaint.
However, senior intelligence officials are not taking these threats lightly, one official said that though on the face of it, the calls seemed to have been made taking cudgels on behalf of right-wing groups, they are sceptical.
An official said that Ravi Poojary had no known links to Hindu Right wing organisations in the State.
“But something new has now emerged with this call. We will probe if there is a nexus between the underworld and right-wing fringe elements in the coastal belt. We will get to the bottom of his network in the State and launch a crackdown,” he said.
The Mangalauru police have launched a surveillance of all known numbers used by Ravi Poojary, who was incidentally a close aide of underworld don Chhota Rajan, and his associates.
Police are also trying to track down Khali Yogesh, the right hand man of Ravi Poojary in the State, who is at large. “We are trying to probe any unusual calls or a pattern emerging in communications in the Ravi Poojary network,” a Mangaluru police official said.
Ravi Poojary had earlier made several statements even to national media channels against Dawood Ibrahim, portraying himself as a patriot. One of the major cases Poojary was involved in was the assassination of Mangaluru-based advocate Naushad Kashimji, appearing for Rashid Malabari, a sharp shooter and Dawood aide.
Ravi Poojary had made several threat calls to the advocate, who was later shot dead in April 2009.
Caste affiliation Meanwhile, intelligence officials suspect that caste affiliation may have prompted Ravi Poojary to intervene in this latest case. Prashanth Poojary, the murdered Bajrang Dal activist, also belongs to the Billava community, the same as Ravi Poojary. Manguluru police officials said that Ravi Poojary had close links with many in the community and most of his associates were also from the community. “He may be trying to portray himself as a saviour for the Billava community and also taking up the larger Hindu cause in a communally polarised environment like Mangaluru,” a police official said.
Though attempts are on to ascertain the genuineness of the caller and trace the origin of the VoIP calls, the security establishment is sceptical of its success.
