by Avijit Biswas
Bhagalpur: Unidentified criminals shot dead a silk businessman of city last night near K B Lal Chowk under Nathnagar Police Station (PS). The victim identified as Md Afzal (35) was killed in front of his business premises located close to his residence at Momin Tola lane. The place of occurrence is considered as hub of local silk industry.
The victim was gunned down when he came out of his house to fetch his motorcycle parked in front of his business establishment. As per local residents four motorcycle borne criminals struck around 10 PM last night. Number of shots was fired upon the victim by the criminals, they informed.
Hearing sound of firing, relatives of victim came out of house to see what was happening when they found victim lying injured. He was immediately rushed to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital here where doctors declared him dead.
The motive behind the crime is yet to be ascertained by police. The victim a prosperous businessman was involved in production and marketing of silk. Senior police officials including SSP Babu Ram visited place of occurrence following the incident.
The place of occurrence was barricaded after the incident for purpose of investigation. As per information nine empty cartridges were recovered from place of occurrence.
Talking with media persons regarding the incident, SSP said last night that circumstantial evidences suggest criminals had come with motive of killing the victim. The incident is being investigated and the culprits would be nabbed soon, he added.
As per sources the CCTV footage of the route through which criminals fled are being scanned by police to identify the culprits. The body of victim was handed to his family members today after postmortem. Meanwhile a sense of fear has gripped people residing in the area in light of the murder.
