Armed men chased and shot dead two business partners with the same name and past, slitting the throat of one just to be sure, in front of a crowd in Howrah on Tuesday.

Swapan Das and Swapan Bar, better known as “Chal” Swapan and “Maachh” Swapan because they used to deal in rice and fish before allegedly discovering that extortion was meatier, had lately reinvented themselves as realtors.

Police said Das was in his office at Ma Kali Builders in Kalibabur Bazaar around 10.30am when 16 youths, some of them brandishing revolvers, barged in. Gunshots were heard moments later and a critically injured Das was seen scampering out of the office and shouting for help.

He was chased and shot again in a narrow lane leading to his house.

Bar, who had by then heard about the attack on his friend, headed for the office of Ma Kali Builders to try and save him but ran into trouble himself. The police quoted witnesses as saying that six armed youths stopped Bar, prompting him to enter a neighbour’s house.

The youths followed him into the house, fired several shots from point-blank range and then slit his throat with a bonti.

Soma Das, in whose room the murder was committed, said: “I was cooking when Bar entered the house. A gang of five or six youths carrying revolvers came after him, fired three or four shots, then took the bonti that was lying nearby and went for his throat. I fainted.”

Sources said at least one of the assailants was injured when Bar retaliated with his gun. The gang crossed Netaji Subhas Bose Road after the crime and fled through the Shankar Math.

The business partners were taken to Howrah District Hospital but doctors declared them dead on arrival. Shops downed shutters and residents remained indoors as news of the twin murders spread. The district administration immediately deployed units of the Combat Force and the Rapid Action Force to prevent a possible backlash by the murdered duo’s supporters.

Howrah superintendent of police Niraj Kumar Singh said investigators had “got some names”, but nobody was arrested till late in the night.

“Das and Bar had criminal records. They had been arrested in a twin murder case dating back to November 2005,” the officer said. The Swapans had allegedly made most of their money through extortion.