The assassins hired to kill Cossipore-based Citu leader Hare Krishna Gupta were paid “a paltry sum” of Rs 20,000, police said on Monday.

Two of the alleged assassins — Sheikh Javed and Mantu Santra — were arrested in the past 24 hours.

“We learnt from Javed and Santra that the 32-year-old’s murder was the fallout of a rivalry between two gangs of extortionists on BT Road. Their statements also revealed how easy it is to hire killers in the city,” said an officer.

Gupta, who allegedly led an extortion racket, was killed on the night of January 15 while he was playing badminton near his house on Gopal Chatterjee Road.

Five youths came to the spot riding two motorcycles, pumped bullets into Gupta and stabbed him with a bhojali before fleeing. The police said it was Javed — against whom another murder case is pending — who shot Gupta.

“The Citu leader, who was the secretary of the Cossipore unit of Janpath Paribahan Samity, may have refused to share some extortion booty with others. This must have prompted his rivals to eliminate him,” said an officer of the detective department.

“We are looking for the three other killers. One of them, Bhutto, is from Jharkhand,” he added.