The 40-year-old businessman, who deals in pump sets and electric motors, had received a letter on Wednesday which threatened that he and his family would be killed if he failed to pay Rs three lakh to Gawli gang as ``protection money.''

The letter, written in Hindi, was signed under the name of Babalu Srivastava. Ironically, Babalu Srivastava happens to be a gangster from Uttar Pradesh and has been closely associated by Gawli's arch rival Dawood Ibrahim.

The businessman's wife was all by herself when the door bell at their Shivajinagar residence rang on Wednesday afternoon. She found the letter stuck on the door on responding to the ringing of the doorbell.