Nagpur: The Nagpur Police on Thursday invoked the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against Jayesh Pujari alias Salim Sheikh after establishing his links with terrorist organisations.
Jayesh Pujari alias Salim Sheikh, who was taken into custody from Hindalga Central Jail in Karnataka’s Belagavi by Nagpur police for making threat calls to harm Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari for extorting crores of rupees, was in contact with two-three gang members of India’s most wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, Al Qaeda, Popular Front of India (PFI) and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Gold Rate
25 April 2025
Investigations revealed that Jayesh was earlier trained in handling improvised explosive devices by the terrorist outfits in a North Eastern State. Jayesh is being jointly interrogated by a special team of the City Police, State and Central Intelligence Agencies. Officers from the Intelligence agencies quizzed him for more than 10 hours last night at Dhantoli Police Station where the case was registered against him. Possibility of an inquiry being ordered against the authorities concerned of the Hindalga Central Jail from where police had seized two cell phones and two SIM cards used by him to make threat calls, cannot be ruled out.
Jayesh, who claimed that he was converted to Islam, had made three threatening calls to the public relations office of Gadkari and demanded Rs 10 crore. Earlier also, he made threat calls to harm Gadkari demanding Rs 100 crore by using the same cell phones and SIM cards. After completing the mandatory formalities per the law, the police finally slapped UAPA against Jayesh.
According to a report in local media, Jayesh Pujari had taken training in bomb making from Mohd Fahad, a Pakistani terrorist who had come to India. After escaping from jail, Jayesh learnt making bombs in Assam as well. Jayesh then wanted to cause widespread destruction across the country but as most of his accomplices were arrested, he could not execute the plan, the report claimed.
