Mumbai:
The Mangalorean mafia seems headed towards a partial takeover of the Mumbai underworld.
After Ravi Pujari killed two engineers at an Andheri construction site to send a chilling message to a builder on March 14, it was his bete noire Hemant Pujari's turn to strike with the murder of a businessman in Goregaon on Saturday.
Hemant Pujari hired shooter Mukesh Sharma alias Shabbir alias Nurul Islam Suleiman from Uttar Pradesh to gun down Angara Pujari, a Monginis frachisee.
Angara was shot through the neck at noon near Goregaon railway station, confirmed Additional Commissioner of Police (north region) Ramarao Pawar.
"We are trying to confirm the role of two women accomplices and whether this faction was involved in earlier crimes," he said.
A local accomplice was picked up by the police last evening but investigators refused to divulge his name saying it would hamper further investigations.
Initial investigations have indicated that Angara had been receiving threats from members of the Hemant Pujari gang, or HP gang as they are known in the underworld, for a long time. A complaint had also been lodged in this connection in 2008.
Police say Hemant and Ravi Pujari, both Mangalorean gangsters, are trying to gain a firm foothold in the western suburbs. They are outsourcing the shootouts to avoid suspicion.
"Hemant Pujari had almost been hibernating for the past few months. The timing of the businessman's murder points to him feeling threatened by his former associates and fellow Mangaloreans Ravi Pujari and Santosh Shetty stepping up their activities in Mumbai," said an underworld source.
The trio had broken away from mentor Chhota Rajan around 2001. Shetty made a name for himself in the underworld with the killing of gangster Bharat Nepali in Bangkok.
Underworld insiders say that, with the latest murder, the Pujaris and Shetty seem set to corner the income from the builder community in the western suburbs.
Ravi Pujari lived near the Sahar airport and was educated there before getting involved in underworld operations. His mentor, Sri Mama, inducted him into the Chhota Rajan gang in 1995 and he formed a deadly combination with Rajan's key lieutenant Guru Satam before breaking away from the gang. Ravi Pujari was not taken seriously until the recent killing at Andheri.
Hemant Pujari was working as a waiter in Ghatkopar before joining hands with Chhota Rajan after a killing at Kherwadi, where he lived and grew up. He was part of Rajan's core team and broke away from him around 2002 to work on his own. He holds sway over Bandra (East) and between Goregaon and Vasai.
Santosh Shetty alias Madan Sharma was part of the Chhota Rajan gang between 1993 and 2002. He operates from countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia and was masterminding drug deals before switching over to running extortion syndicates in Mumbai.