The warning was executed by the newly emerging Bahrain-based gangster Ali Budesh who had asked Bansal to "either pay up Rs 50 lakh or meet the same end", disclosed a senior police officer.

"At this stage nothing is being ruled out. It could be extortion, it could be something else," said the joint commissioner of police, crime, Ranjit Singh Sharma.

According to a senior police officer, during the last several months Budesh had been demanding Rs 50 lakh from Bansal, while the hotelier ignored the demands. In the last month Budesh started leaving messages asking Bansal to call Bahrain and speak to him.

On Sunday two unidentified persons came to the restaurant and sought to meet Bansal. After they were told that Bansal was in Surat and hence not available, they asked for food. When the stewards refusedto serve the duo left the place and went to a STD booth nearby.

They reportedly called up Budesh to tell Bansal was missing following which they were instructed to kill "any waiter" in the hotel. The duo returned after 20 minutes. They found a convenient target in Rodrigues who was standing in the compound. Earlier, the duo had an altercation with him.

According to the senior police officer, the killing was aimed at misleading the police throwing their investigation off track and warn Bansal that if he continued to ignore, his life would be in danger.

"Nobody kills for such a trivial reason like refusal to serve food," admitted the additional commissioner of police, north-west region, Satyapal Singh. "There is something more to it than meets the eye." The duo had fired five rounds at Rodrigues from a .9 mm pistol.

"Bansal has not returned from Surat. Things will become clearer only after he arrives," Singh said. "We have already made an identikit of one of the shooters to verify if he is on ourrecords," he added.

Budesh, a United Arab Emirates resident, must be the first foreign national trying to establish his network in Mumbai. During his contact with Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai, Budesh had learnt that the business community quivers when they receive calls from Dubai.

Capitalising on this information, Budesh wanted to align himself with the Sharad Shetty faction of the Dawood Ibrahim syndicate. However, Shetty remained loyal to his master Dawood and refused to join Budesh.

However, Budesh found an ally in Subhash Singh Thakur. Though Thakur is lodged in the Tihar central prison in Delhi, many of his men are active in the western suburbs and his chief lieutenant Dilawar Khan is increasing his clout in the city.

Businessmen have been giving in to the extortion demands of Budesh. Rodrigues seems to be his second casualty. Last year following the murder of builder Natwarlal Desai at Nariman Point, Budesh had claimed responsibility for the murder through this newspaper.