Gangster manages to obtain passport and travel abroad; cops launch probe

Pune, Sep 30 (PTI) Pune-based gangster Nilesh Ghaywal has managed to secure a passport and visa and travel abroad despite facing multiple serious criminal cases, prompting police to launch a probe into the matter, officials said.

A Look Out Circular (LOC) had been issued against Ghaywal, believed to be abroad currently, even as he faced fresh criminal charges in a road rage case in which a man was shot at by five to six of his associates in Pune, police said on Sunday.

"We have already issued an LOC against Ghaywal and now we are probing how he managed to obtain a passport despite having multiple serious criminal cases registered against him (most of them in Pune)," a senior Pune police official said on Sunday.

The gangster may have obtained the key travel document illegally, as police in the adjoining Ahilyanagar city had given negative remarks for his address verification, according to sources.

Ahilyanagar Superintendent of Police Somnath Gharge, in a press release, stated that one 'Nilesh Bansilal Gaywal', resident of Gauri Ghumat area at Anandi Bazar on Maliwada Road in the city, had applied for a 'tatkal' passport (fast-track service) with the Pune Regional Passport Office.

"During the verification of the said passport application, the Kotawali police station (in Ahilyanagar) did not find him living at the said address, prompting the police to send negative remarks as 'not available' on the address to the passport office," said Gharge.

Ghaywal, who in his late 40s, has over a dozen cases of serious offences registered against him, including murder, attempt to murder and extortion, according to police.

Earlier this month, members of his gang allegedly fired at a 36-year-old man and assaulted a teenager in Pune's Kothrud area following a road rage incident.

The Pune police said they have credible inputs that the gangster recently left the country, but did not specify his exact location.

A probe was underway to find out how Ghaywal managed to obtain the passport despite a court order to surrender it, and then secured a visa to travel overseas, they said.

An LOC is a legal mechanism used to alert immigration authorities when a person wanted in criminal cases attempts to enter or exit India. It is routed through the state CID to the Bureau of Immigration and may precede stronger measures such as a Red Corner Notice.

A close aide of gangster Gaja Marne in the early 2000s, Ghaywal later broke away from him, triggering violent gang rivalries in Pune.

He had been previously booked under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) and detained under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug Offenders and Dangerous Persons Act (MPDA Act), as per police records. PTI SPK RSY GK