What is even more galling for the police, perhaps, is the fact that they had arrested Munshi and had interrogated him for a fortnight before he gave them the slip while being shifted to the Baroda Central Jail in March this year.

To top it all, according to a senior police official closely connected with the Munshi case, Surat's most wanted man was believed to be very much in the city, his base since 1993.

Now, however, the police think Munshi has overplayed his hand by extorting money from the same minority community that has allegedly sheltered him a number of times. Though no formal case has been made, a number of wealthy members of the minority community have lodged verbal complaints with senior officials over the past few months, a senior officer told Express Newsline.Munshi, who reportedly claimed to be associated with the Dawood gang, is said to belong to a well-off Ahmedabad-based family. He was reportedly initiated into crime in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition and is charged with the murder of three anti-socials of the majority community during the riots, following which his own community guarded him fiercely.Though the police know Munshi to be close to a woman, officials say he has been particularly careful not to visit her for the past few months. In any case, he is said to operate alone in most cases, associating with only four or five confidants, none of whom the police have been able to arrest yet.

Incidentally, before the November 28 murder of Africawala an investigating official said he was part of the Munshi gang, and had probably fallen out with the chief over money matters -- Munshi's name had surfaced in connection with the daylight murder of industrialist Babu Reshamwala at the busy Majura gate crossroads in July 1997.