India has asked the United Kingdom to track down and arrest Gujarat’s Jaysukh Ranpariya who had fled the country to Dubai after allegedly ordering the murder of Jamnagar lawyer Kirit Joshi in April 2018.
Jaysukh Muljibhai Ranpariya, also known as Jayesh Patel, has been traced to the UK on the basis of extortion phone calls made by the 41-year-old gangster, people familiar with the matter said.
Jaysukh Ranpariya faces 42 criminal cases including murder, extortion, cheating, forgery and money laundering, according to a Gujarat Police dossier seen by Hindustan Times.
The Interpol has already issued a Red Corner Notice against Ranpariya to alert countries to take him into custody. Officials said the Gujarat police, in its request to trace and arrest Ranpariya, had cited the Interpol notice.
Asked about the request to detain Ranpariya, a spokesperson for the Scotland Yard said they wouldn’t be able to reveal this information. “We do not search by names and we do not identify anyone who may or may not be subject to a police investigation,” the spokesperson said.
Back in India, the federal financial crimes agency Enforcement Directorate had attached assets worth Rs 3.97 crore in one 2018 case related to usurping of land in Jamnagar.
Ranpariya had been operating in Jamnagar for some years, extorting money from real estate developers and property owners when they tried to sell land or buildings. Ranpariya would get forged documents made and lay claim to the property to create a dispute that would make it impossible for the owner to sell the plot or building. He would back off only when he was paid. Police said the money would run into crores.
Ranpariya hit the headlines after the murder of Jamnagar lawyer Kirit Joshi who had been filing criminal cases against him for extortion on behalf of his clients.
Joshi was stabbed multiple times by two men when he was about to open his car on a busy road. Police later arrested two men who alleged that Ranpariya had paid them to kill the lawyer.
Ranpariya, till then a local land mafia, had anticipated that the police would go after him after this murder and had slipped out of the country using a fake passport. He was believed to have based himself for some time in Dubai.
According to Gujarat Police, Ranpriya had been contacting his victims using phone numbers traced to the United Kingdom and would cite the Kirit Joshi’s murder to scare them into paying up. Often, he would also keep the victim’s family under surveillance and threaten to harm them to create fear of his syndicate. Not many would come forward to file police complaints against him.
According to the police, they were aware of several cases where people had paid up crores of rupees after his phone call; often in instalments spread over a year.
