Nine years after his extradition to India, Kumar Pillai seeks repatriation to Hong Kong

“It is submitted that the current status of the applicant is not been authorised by any provision of law and due to inaction by the police machinery, the applicant had to face several hardships,” the plea further adds, stating that he has been left with no option but to approach the court seeking directions to the police to take appropriate steps for repatriation to his home country. The court has directed the police to file a reply to his application, which will be heard on December 20.

The unlikely ‘gangster’

According to the police, in the 1980s, Pillai had graduated with a degree in textile engineering and lived in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai with his family. His father, Krishna Pillai, ran a club, and was murdered over a dispute, allegedly over his refusal to sell his establishment to a local politician. The police had claimed that Kumar Pillai swore revenge and got involved in Amar Naik ‘s gang, before he left the country after 2007.
In 2016, when a team of Mumbai police officials went to get his custody in Singapore, he is alleged to have told them in chaste Marathi that he was glad they came and he could now meet his mother.

Extradition and the cases against him

Pillai’s plea in court states that he was brought from Singapore in 2016 to be tried in three cases pending before the Mumbai Police crime branch from 2009 to 2013. Two of the cases were filed in 2009 related to alleged extortion bids. In one of the cases, he also faced the stringent charge under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.
In 2020, the special court acquitted him in the first case, related to alleged extortion of an MLA from Vikhroli. It was claimed that the MLA had received a threat call from Pillai, while he was out of India, seeking Rs 75 lakh for a redevelopment project in the suburb. Pillai was acquitted by the court saying that there was not enough evidence to convict him.
In 2022, Pillai was acquitted in the second case, where he was similarly booked for making a threat call to a builder in 2009, demanding Rs 15 lakh.
In March 2024, Pillai was acquitted in a murder bid case, for a shooting carried out at a builder’s office in 2009. In all the cases, the court ruled that there was no evidence to show that the caller was Pillai.

Repatriation to Hong Kong

His application states that he originally had an Indian passport, issued in 2007, but he had later on settled and acquired citizenship of Hong Kong. It says that he frequently travelled to Singapore, while residing in Hong Kong. On learning this, the High Commission of India in Singapore in 2015 made a request with the authorities to arrest him and extradite him to India for the pending cases. He was arrested in Singapore in 2016 and an application was filed before the district court to request his extradition to India. On May 19, 2016, the local court held that Pillai was liable to surrender to India and therefore committed him to prison to wait for the minister’s warrant for his surrender. He was then handed over to Indian authorities after completing the procedure and was brought to India, over a month later on June 26, 2016.