Early years Manohar Arjun Surve was born in 1944 in the village of Ranpar in the
Konkan Ratnagiri region, located in the Central Deccan Division of the erstwhile
Bombay Presidency,
British Indian Empire. The village is now a part of Ratnagiri Taluka,
Ratnagiri District,
Maharashtra, India. Surve moved to
Bombay with his mother and stepfather in 1952. For years, he lived in different
chawls in
Elphinstone Road and
Lower Parel. He was a Chemistry graduate from
Kirti M. Doongursee College, Mumbai, achieving a high score of 78%. He then fell into street life, eventually forming a crew consisting of former classmates. During these years, he was introduced to his best friend and associate Sumesh Desai through his stepbrother Bhargav Dada. Dada was a feared criminal from Agar Bazar in
Dadar. In 1969, Surve, Dada and associate Manya Podhkar were all charged in the homicide and gang assault of a man named Dandekar. The trio were soon arrested by Police Inspector E. S. Dabholkar and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Imprisonment and escape While incarcerated at the
Yerwada Central Jail in
Pune, Surve developed a fierce rivalry with gangster Suhas ("Potya Bhai") Bhatkar. Annoyed by Surve's terror tactics, the prison authorities had him transferred to
Ratnagiri jail. There, he took part in a
hunger strike and lost almost 20 kg before being transferred to the local civil hospital. Surve utilized this opportunity to escape on 14 November 1979 and returned to the streets of Mumbai, having served over nine years of his sentence. The group's various successful heists and robberies brought a tremendous amount of attention. As a result, the police were put under great pressure to deal with Surve, and they launched Operation Manya Surve to capture and curb his criminal activities. ==In popular culture==