Amol Vishwanath Chavan was watching television in a small room of Chawl no. 1 at Kamgar Nagar around 10.30 pm with three friends (Dattatraya Patil, Anant Patil and Arun Gaingaonkar) when Narayan Devrukhkar knocked at the door. As the boys, who knew Narayan quite well, opened the door he whipped out a gun and fired a single shot at Amol from a close range. The bullet caught Amol in his neck and as he slumped to the ground, Narayan walked off.

Amol's friend tried to resuscitate him before he was rushed to KEM hospital by neighbours. He was declared dead before admission.

Investigating Officer Sub-Inspector M D Patil said a massive man-hunt has been launched to arrest Narayan. ``He has not gone too far. We will arrest him in thenext 24 hours,'' said a senior officer.

Senior Inspector R Kadam said the motive of the killing is yet to be established. He said his team was trying to find out if Narayan had any friends in the underworld, who could have possibly supplied him the weapon.Narayan alias Ghatlya was employed briefly by a garment manufacturing factory, but was jobless for better part of this year.

Narayan's family told investigators that he had his dinner and left the house saying he would return soon. They did not suspect that he was in possession of a gun and came to know of the incident when they heard a commotion in the neighbourhood.

The firing in the 15 X 15 sq ft tenement in the two-storeyed chawl shattered the calm of this predominantly lower-middle-class mill neighbourhood as people gathered around the room owned by one K R Patil, who is on a vacation to Kolhapur. The key to the room was with Dattatraya and he allowed the friends in, said the police.

Amol had just appeared for his SCC examination. His father isa welder at Richardson Cruddas Co at Byculla.