NAGPUR, May 9: A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrived in Nagpur on Tuesday to conduct a probe into threatening phone calls made to Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, a police official said.
The calls were allegedly made by a murder convict, Jayesh Pujari alias Kantha, who was arrested from a jail in Belagavi, Karnataka, and booked under the anti-terror law UAPA.
A senior official of the Nagpur police said the NIA had registered a case at Bengaluru and the Mumbai unit of the central agency was directed to conduct an investigation. A team of the NIA arrived in Nagpur from Mumbai and started collecting documents and crucial leads regarding the case, he said.
Exploring the suspected role of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror outfit, and the underworld in the episode are the main focus of the investigation, said the official. On January 14, Pujari made a threatening call to Gadkari’s public relations office in Nagpur, demanding Rs 100 crore and claiming to be a member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang, according to the police.
At that time, he was lodged in a jail in neighbouring Karnataka. He made another call on March 21, threatening to harm the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Nagpur if Rs 10 crore was not paid to him, the police said. Pujari was arrested and brought to Nagpur on March 28 from a jail in Belagavi city of Karnataka, and the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was invoked against him.
After receiving the green signal from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, NIA officials launched an investigation on terror angle as Pujari had relations with terrorists, including Lashkar-e-Taiba’s South Division chief Captain Naseer, said the official. The murder convict had also taken arms training in the North-East, he added. (PTI)
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