MUMBAI, May 27: In what could be an outcome of gangland rivalry, two men, including a second-rung lieutenant of Arun Gawli, were shot dead at Goregaon (East) in the northern suburbs this morning.

Around 8.45 a.m., Nandkumar Vishwas Rao alias Nandu Fighter, a Gawli aide for the last 12 years, and his companion, Umesh Gupta, were walking along a road when two men in a Maruti 800 car cut across them. Before Fighter and his friend could say anything, the assailants opened fire.

As the two collapsed, the gunmen escaped. The victims were rushed to the Cooper Hospital but were declared dead before admission. The weapon used in the killing was a .9-mm pistol.

On receipt of the news, the joint commissioner of police, Crime, Ranjit Singh Sharma and the deputy commissioner of police, Detection, K L Prasad, rushed to the spot and also visited the Cooper Hospital.

Until late evening, neither the sectional police nor the crime branch had made any headway in the killings.

Some of the city-based underlings of Chhota Shakeel attribute the killing to their Dubai-based boss, citing gang rivalry as the motive. Gupta, a flour-mill owner, was said to be innocently killed.

But the police is non-committal about the shoot-out. Without ruling out any possibility, additional commissioner of police, Crime, S P S Yadav told Express Newsline, ``Till recently, Nandu was with the Gawli gang. His murder could be a vengeance killing because he had separated himself from them.'' Even the other police officers supported Yadav's opinion.

Fighter's murder could also be a fall-out of internal disputes that have plagued the gang since 1996, beginning with the murder of Ashok Choudhary alias Chhota Babu at Mazgaon by Sada Pawle.

It may be mentioned that Nandu Fighter was arrested by the Agripada police on December 13 last year from Dagdi Chawl. That and the arrest of another gangster, Bandya Adivalekar, became the ground for Arun Gawli's detention under the National Security Act (NSA) this February. Gawli was accused of harbouring the two men. After his release, Fighter at the instance of Gawli had shifted his residence to Goregaon and was living with his relatives. Sources say he was under watch for the last three or four months and was eliminated at the first available opportunity.

Working closely with Gawli, Fighter was involved in numerous cases of assault, rioting and complicity in various other crimes. He was also deft in unarmed combat, thus the nickname Fighter. However, the police could nail him in only three cases so far: two of murder in Agripada and Kalachowky and one involving firing at Mawal in Pune.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.