Sources said on Thursday that some documents to identify some senior policemen and leaders had been recovered from Sharif Gaffurbhai Qureshi, a resident of Jamalpur, the previous day.

He was nabbed when he was trying to contact Javed Khan, the younger brother of slained ganglord Abdul Latif at the high-risk prison area of the Sabarmati Central Jail, the sources added.

Police said Qureshi had been helping henchmen and supari killers of the Chhota Shakeel gang in identifying senior police officers and politicians for the killing of their aides. He had also been providing shelters to the gangsters at some hotels and houses of his relatives, police said.

Latif was killed in a police encounter on the outskirts of the city in January, while six members of the Chhota Shakeel gang became the police target on March 23 when they were hiding in a house in Dariapur with deadly explosives and sophisticated arms

.Police said Qureshi was also trying to get in touch with some members of the notorious Porbander gang which had contacts with the Mumbai underworld. Probably this gang had agreed to provide him assistance, police said, adding it was Latif's younger brother Mohammed Ismile who wanted to avenge the killings.

Police have sounded an alert all over the State to trace other criminals and henchmen of the gang. The list includes Qasam Mohammed Qureshi, Khursheed Mohammed, Sachin Marathe, Mohammed Ismile and Mer, a notorious criminal of the Porbander gang who accompanied the gangsters in several operations.