Ravi Poojary gang

The Ravi Poojary gang represents a distinctive chapter in Mumbai's underworld history, not merely as another criminal enterprise but as a testament to how a gangster's wife could become the strategic architect of a criminal empire. Emerging from the shadow of Chhota Rajan's powerful organization, the gang was built on the ambition of Ravi Poojary, a man who had risen to become one of Rajan's closest aides by early 2000 but who chafed at being a mere cog in the Rajan machinery. What distinguished this gang from its contemporaries was the central, if hidden, role of Padma Poojary, whose advice and strategic vision shaped its trajectory, making it a unique case of a wife's influence driving a criminal enterprise's formation and direction.

Origins and the Break from the Rajan Gang

The gang's origins lie in the restless ambition of Ravi Poojary, who by early 2000 had become one of Chhota Rajan's closest aides. Despite this proximity to power, Poojary lacked any extraordinary achievements or credentials he could call his own, a realization that was deeply disturbing for a man who had always wanted to carve a niche for himself in the underworld. According to police sources, it was during this period of discontent that his wife, Padma, advised him to deviate from the Rajan gang and start his own enterprise. She allegedly suggested he look toward Bollywood and the business classes, which she identified as the real mine of wealth. Following her advice, Ravi left the Rajan gang and recruited men from Mumbai to work for him, even as he continued to operate from Southeast Asia, establishing a pattern of remote leadership that would define the gang's operations.

Extortion and Criminal Operations

The gang's primary method of operation was extortion, with calls being made to bigwigs in the city. The most notorious incident came in 2006, when Poojary's men opened fire at Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt's office after he refused to give in to Ravi's extortion demands. This brazen attack on a prominent film figure signaled the gang's willingness to use violence to enforce its demands. The gang also attempted to extort Rs 50 crore from Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor's Delhi-based businessman husband, Sanjay Kapur, demonstrating the scale of their financial ambitions. These operations were conducted remotely, with Ravi directing his Mumbai-based recruits from his base in Southeast Asia, a structure that allowed him to maintain control while evading direct police scrutiny.

Padma Poojary's Role and the Passport Forgery Case

Padma Poojary shrewdly kept away from the gang's activities, escaping police scrutiny with consummate ease even as she served as its chief architect. Her first brush with the law came in 1995, when she obtained a passport on the basis of a forged ration-card and school-leaving certificate. This matter only came to light a full ten years later, in 2005, when she sent her passport for renewal and applied for her children's passports. The passport authorities grew suspicious while scrutinizing her forms and immediately tipped off the Mumbai police's Crime Branch. On conducting inquiries, the Crime Branch learned that not only were the documents submitted for her children's passport applications fake, but those she had submitted to procure her own passport in 1995 had also been forged. Padma had used the passport to travel to several countries in Africa and the Middle East, and the police suspected that during her travels she had met her absconding husband, who had taken refuge in a foreign country. Her passport was seized and she was arrested on 4 October 2005, though she was released on bail some thirty days later. Her lawyer, Shyam Keswani, repeatedly denied her role in handling her husband's financial affairs, insisting there was no truth in the police's claims, and the police lacked evidence to book her for assisting Ravi in his activities.

Padma's Escape and the Gang's Aftermath

Following her arrest and bail, Padma came under intense police scrutiny. With her phone lines tapped and her whereabouts monitored, she was left with no option but to flee the country. According to police, Padma escaped from India via the Nepal border after acquiring a new fake passport, though the police only managed to arrest the person who planned her escape. The Maharashtra police issued an Interpol Red Corner Notice against her, a mechanism that flags wanted persons at airports across the 186 countries that Interpol spans. Despite this international backing, the police could not track Padma down, and even five years after her escape, her location remained a mystery. The police believed she was living with her husband and had narrowed down the location of her hideout to somewhere in South Africa. The gang's story, as the book notes, cannot quite carry a 'The End' card, since it is impossible to predict the kind of designs Padma has drawn up for the future as chief architect of Ravi's gang's criminal activities.

Cultural Portrayal and Significance

Though Padma's criminal record was relatively less riddled with criminal activities compared with Sujata Nikhalje, the wife of Chhota Rajan, she holds a unique distinction: she is the only wife of a Hindu gangster to have been portrayed on celluloid. A B-grade Bollywood film called World Cupp 2011, which released in early 2010, portrayed Padma Poojary as a hardcore drinker and the queen of cricket betting rackets, who bribed police authorities and government officials. The director of the film was later threatened by Ravi for portraying his wife in a negative light, an act that underscored the gang's continued reach even as its leadership remained in hiding. The gang's significance lies not just in its criminal acts but in the inversion of the typical gangster narrative: here, the wife was the strategist, the one who saw the opportunity in Bollywood and business, who advised the break from a powerful patron, and who ultimately proved more elusive than her husband. The book poses a rhetorical question about where an educated, crafty and ambitious woman with dreams of possessing a fortune of billions can go if she ends up marrying a small-time thug with no identity of his own, answering simply: anywhere she wants. As far as the police is concerned, the chase is still on.