Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said Monday that the government is thoroughly probing the case pertaining to the threat call made to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari from Hindalga jail in Belagavi.
On Saturday, Union Road Transport Minister Gadkari received several threat calls from an unknown person. The individual called on the landline at Gadkari’s office in Nagpur. During the probe, Maharashtra Police officials found that the call came from Hindalga Central Prison and identified the caller as Jayesh Pujari. Karnataka state police officials also found that he was convicted in a murder case.
Bommai said, “The call was made from Hindalga prison. We are getting the entire issue investigated as it is a serious matter. We will be looking into all the aspects.”
Claiming to be an associate of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, Pujari allegedly made several threat calls demanding a ransom of Rs 100 crore and threatened to kill the minister if he failed to do so.
Jayesh Pujari was arrested for killing a person in Dakshina Kannada district and the Mangaluru sessions court sentenced him to death. In 2016, he escaped from jail but was later arrested by the Karnataka Police. In 2019, the police shifted him to Mysuru Central Prison and in 2021 he was shifted to Hindalga prison.
However, the police are also probing how a murder convict lodged in prison managed to get hold of a mobile phone and under whose name the SIM card was registered.
A police official said that with the lack of prison staff it is not difficult for prisoners to get mobile phones or other materials inside the prison but frequent raids by the police can prevent it to some extent. There are about 120 staff members compared to around 900 prisoners in Hindalga jail, besides 68 CCTV cameras, and the staff strength makes it difficult to monitor prisoners, the officer added.