He participated in Goa liberation movement, and spent fourteen years in Portuguese jail for the premeditated murder of a Goan policeman named Custodio Fernandes.

He entered Goa illegally again in 1950 under the false name of Mohan Ranade, with the assistance of Vishnupant Vaze, and again began working as a Marathi language teacher for a small private group of Hindu students in Savoi Verem.

[3] Ranade also participated in a number of armed robberies on police and customs outposts, as well as mines, in order to steal weapons and explosives for his organization.

On 18 August 1955, Mohan Ranade, infuriated by the action of a policeman Custodio Fernandes of Savoi Verem, for pulling down the Indian Tricolor and stamping on it, went at night to his house, called out to him and then shot him dead.

The intervention of the then Tamil Nadu chief minister, C. N. Annadurai, and Pope Paul VI was instrumental in securing his release.