Alleged gangster Kumar Pillai, who was deported from Singapore in 2016 and arrested in three cases, was on Wednesday acquitted by a special court along with another accused Bhaskar Pujari in an extortion and murder bid case on a Vikhroli-based builder.
As per the builder Ramesh Shah’s complaint, in Feb 2009, he had received a phone call from an international number and the caller had identified himself as Kumar Pillai and demanded Rs. 15 lakhs from the businessman. He started receiving more calls and complained to the police, but had not revealed the identity of the caller. The calls had stopped. Some months later, on Nov 11 that year, Shah was in his Vikhroli office with his son and partner, when a man had barged into the office and pointed a pistol at him and attempted to shoot him. The pistol did not successfully fire and had only emitted a sound.
Shah had lodged an FIR and the man ‘Lafda Shetty’ who had attempted to shoot at him and was identified by one of his office staff, was arrested the following day. After lodging the FIR, Shah had received a call from a private number. The caller had identified himself as ‘Prasad Pujari’ and threatened that he had survived this time around, but would not survive the next time. Three more arrests took place. Pillai’s advocate Mahesh Mule said Pillai had been shown as a wanted accused along with Pujari and one other person. In 2015, three of the accused were convicted in the case, including Lafda Shetty and two were acquitted. Pillai came to be arrested in this case in 2016 after his deportation.
