Mumbai, Nov. 13 :    Mumbai, Nov. 13:  Unidentified gunmen today shot at Neeta Naik, a Shiv Sena councillor and wife of jailed gangster Ashwin Naik, in a Central Mumbai apartment building, injuring her critically. Neeta was shot in the head, neck and stomach as she climbed the stairs to her flat in Subhasis Building on N.M. Joshi Road around 1.30 pm, police and Sena leaders said. She was admitted to K.M. Hospital in Parel, where her condition was stated to be 'extremely serious'. Mumbai was rife with rumours that Neeta had died, but there was no confirmation from the police. The attack has raised the spectre of a renewed spurt in gangland violence in the country's commercial capital. It comes barely 10 days after the Chhota Rajan gang killed three suspected associates of Chhota Shakeel - Karachi-based don Dawood Ibrahim's right-hand man - in retaliation against the September 15 attempt on Rajan in Bangkok. Ashwin Naik, who is in prison, is the brother of gangster Amar Naik, who was killed in an encounter last year. Police could not immediately say if the attack was linked to the Rajan-Ibrahim rivalry. In the past, Dawood's gang has killed mid-level Sena and BJP leaders after Rajan's hitmen took out the 1993 Mumbai blasts suspects. The D-company has not attacked any woman leader before. Police were still not sure of the number of assailants or how they escaped. They suspect the attackers might have used handguns fitted with silencers. Naik was returning from a Sena conference in Amravati district. 'We all got down from a train at Dadar around 12.30 pm and she immediately left for home,' said Dagru Sakpal, Sena MLA from Lalbag. But Sakpal refused to say who the party suspects to be behind the attack. 'It is for the police to find out,' he added. A history graduate from Sophia College, Neeta, now in her early forties, married Ashwin, an engineer-turned gangster, in 1987 after a love affair. They have a son and a daughter, both of whom were inside the flat at the time of the attack. Neeta was elected councillor on a Sena ticket in 1992 and re-elected in 1997 from Chinchpokli. She was also a strong contender for mayor in the mid-Nineties. After heading the corporation's education committee, Neeta was put on the crucial standing committee on financial affairs. Sources claimed that Neeta was running her husband's gang since his arrest by the West Bengal police last year while trying to cross over into Bangladesh. Apparently, the police had no charges against her.