Ravi Poojary

Ravi Poojary is a Mumbai gangster whose criminal career was shaped and directed by his wife, Padma Poojary, a middle-class Sikh woman who allegedly became the mastermind behind his rise in the underworld. From his origins as a small-time criminal in Mumbai to his ascent as one of Chhota Rajan's favourite protégés, and finally to his breakaway as an independent extortionist targeting Bollywood and the business classes, Poojary's trajectory is inseparable from the ambitions and advice of his wife. His story, as told in the book, is filtered through the lens of Padma's own legal troubles, particularly her arrest in a passport forgery case that revealed the couple's criminal network to the police.

Identity and Background

Ravi Poojary was originally from Mangalore in Karnataka, but he met his future wife Padma while both were studying at a co-educational convent school in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri, in the Sahar Airport Colony. Padma, a middle-class Sikh by birth whose maiden name was Khanna, was drawn to Ravi from an early age, and the two became childhood sweethearts. Ravi, however, was drawn to a different world. From the very beginning, he was attracted to crime and the underworld, and he soon dropped out of school. He began his criminal career as a small-time criminal, but his fortunes changed when he killed his opponent Bala Zake, a murder that allowed him to rise through the ranks of the underworld.

Rise Through the Underworld

In the mid-1990s, Ravi Poojary joined the gang of Chhota Rajan, the self-proclaimed patriotic don who was at the time Dawood Ibrahim's aide-turned-enemy, trying to establish a strong base in Mumbai's crime scene. It was around this time that Ravi married his long-time girlfriend Padma. Padma only learned about Ravi's criminal activity after marrying him. She was faced with two options: to leave him or to live with the fact that her husband was a goon. Lured by the possibility of immense wealth, she chose the latter, though she perhaps did not fully understand the pitfalls of being married to a criminal.

Ravi served as Rajan's foot-soldier in Mumbai, starting off by executing the don's day-to-day orders. At Rajan's behest, he would extort money from hoteliers and other businessmen in Mumbai. In the years that followed, Poojary became one of Rajan's favourite protégés, travelling to Dubai and Southeast Asia to carry out his boss's jobs. Throughout this period, Padma kept a low profile and continued to live with their children in a rented flat in the Sher-e-Punjab colony of Andheri. During this time, Padma also converted from Sikhism to Christianity and had her children baptised, though the reason for this change of faith remains unknown.

Breakaway and Independent Enterprise

By early 2000, Ravi had become one of Rajan's closest aides. However, barring the fact that he belonged to Rajan's gang, he did not have any extraordinary achievements or credentials that he could call his own. For a man who had always wanted to carve a niche for himself in the underworld, the realisation that he was a mere cog in the Rajan machinery was very disturbing. According to police sources, it was during this time that Padma advised Ravi to deviate from the Rajan gang and start his own enterprise. She also allegedly suggested that he look at Bollywood and the business classes as the real mine of wealth.

Following his wife's advice, Ravi left the Rajan gang and recruited men from Mumbai to work for him, even as he continued to operate from Southeast Asia. Extortion calls began to be made to bigwigs in the city. In 2006, Poojary's men opened fire at Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt's office, after he refused to give in to Ravi's extortion demands. Poojary also tried to extort Rs 50 crore from Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor's Delhi-based businessman husband Sanjay Kapur. Padma shrewdly kept away from the gang's activities and escaped police scrutiny with consummate ease.

Padma's Legal Troubles and the Couple's Exposure

Padma finally had her first brush with the law for obtaining a passport on the basis of a forged ration-card and school-leaving certificate in 1995. The matter concerning the submission of fake documents by Padma only came to light as late as 2005, a good ten years later, when she sent her passport for renewal and applied for her children's passports. The passport authorities grew suspicious while scrutinising her passport forms and immediately tipped off the Mumbai police's Crime Branch. The Crime Branch, on conducting inquiries, learned that not only were the documents submitted for Padma's children's passport applications fake, but those submitted by her to procure a passport in 1995 had also been forged.

Padma had used the passport to travel to several countries in Africa and the Middle East. The police suspected that, during her course of travel, 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. Padma was only released on bail some thirty days later. Her lawyer Shyam Keswani repeatedly denied her role in handling her husband's financial affairs, insisting that there was no truth in the police's claims. The police, too, did not have any evidence to book her for assisting Ravi in his activities.

Aftermath and Significance

Padma Poojary, the alleged mastermind behind the notorious gangster Ravi Poojary, has been absconding ever since she was let out on bail in the passport forgery case in 2005. A five-year-old Interpol Red Corner notice is still pending against her. As far as the police is concerned, the chase is still on. Ravi Poojary's story, as told through his wife's, illustrates the political economy of crime in Mumbai, where criminal enterprises are often family affairs, and where the wives of gangsters can play a decisive role in shaping their husbands' careers, managing their finances, and even directing their criminal strategies. The couple's trajectory also highlights the intersection of crime with the legitimate worlds of Bollywood and real estate, and the ways in which the state's legal instruments, such as the passport system and the Interpol Red Corner notice, are used to pursue those who operate across borders.