Talking to Express Newsline, Karekar's father Ganapat said that as he had been reprimanding Devendra for his ``undesirable activities'', the gangster was not in good terms with him for the last several years.

Claiming that he had not seen his son for about last two years, Ganpat said, ``Devendra never informed us about his whereabouts, neither did he ever ring us up.''

A proprietor of a printing press in Dombivli, Ganpat said that Devendra was mischievous since his childhood and had dropped out of school before matriculation.

But after leaving studies, Devendra, besides helping in the family business, befriended some local youths, one of whom was arrested by the police, Ganpat said, adding that it was then when they knew that their son had fallen into bad company.

``When he returned to the house that day, I shouted at him. From that day, he left the house and started living in a rented house alongwith his friends,'' Ganpat recalled.

According to his younger brother, Umesh, though Devendra occassionally visited the house as well as the printing press when he was in Mumbai, he never took interest in the family business. ``Though we tried to pull him away from crimes by asking him to get married, he never agreed to it,'' Umesh regretted.

Meanwhile, the local police maintained that the gangster did not have any local contacts and had been living in a rented house in Karelibaug area under a ficticious name.