New Delhi, Sep 27 : Amid Indian investigating agencies' efforts to dismantle the Khalistani terrorist-gangsters nexus, a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has found that the gangsters -- to acquire sophisticated weapons, joined hands with Khalistani organisations and carried out operations -- bearing a distinct resemblance with the functioning of the 'Mumbai Underworld' to target important personalities, carry out murder and kidnappings. According to NIA sources, the individual gangs formed the crime syndicates when their operations grew bigger to get a pool of cheap shooters and carry out inter-state operations. The source alleged that as the influence of the criminal syndicate grew, they increasingly needed more sophisticated weapons for carrying out their criminal activities. To procure the sophisticated weapons, syndicate members of the criminal gangs forged a symbiotic relationship with proscribed terrorist organisations and persons working for the cause of Khalistan, the source said. "In return for the sophisticated weapons, the criminal syndicates, besides their criminal activities, carried out extortions and targeted killings of foreign-based proscribed terrorist organisations for furthering the Khalistan cause. "This was the exact parallel modus operandi, as seen in Mumbai's underworld". Explaining the similarity in the work of the gangsters with the terrorist groups while drawing a comparison with the underworld, the source said: "The underworld during its early days used to carry out criminal activities and when they grew as criminal syndicate they carried out criminal activities like murders, shooting of prominent personalities and businessmen." The source further said that they also adopted the means of kidnapping, extortion, land grabbing etc., while comparing the similarity in the operations of the gangsters and terrorists and Mumbai underworld. The source also said that this was the very way in which the Mumbai underworld later carried out terrorist attacks in Mumbai after joining hands with the Pakistan-based terror organisations. The case appears quite similar with the gangsters and terrorists nexus, as they too have adopted the same modus-operandi of first forming and expanding the gangs, then setting up a syndicate and eventually joining hands with "the foreign-based and anti-India banned organisations to carry out terror activities". It is worth mentioning that in the early 90s, the underworld unleashed terror in Mumbai, threatened several Bollywood personalities and was also behind the killing of T-Series chief Gulshan Kumar. The source said that the gangsters who joined the hands with the Khalistani terror groups on the instructions of their handlers have been threatening the Punjabi singers and also targeted "key individuals" from business circle in Punjab. /IANS