Three motorcycle-borne youths pumped eight rounds of bullets into a Behala grocer in his shop on Friday afternoon.

Dilip Naskar was a supplier of building materials before setting up the shop at Parnasree two years ago. Investigators said he also used to run a money-lending business.

Witnesses said the assailants, all in their early 20s, reached the shop on a motorcycle and asked Dilip for cigarettes. As he bent down to take out a packet from the shelf, the youths whipped out revolvers and shot eight rounds in quick succession. The trio then sped away, leaving everyone who saw the incident shocked.

“One bullet went through his cheek, another lodged itself in his stomach and a third went through his right hand, which he had raised to protect himself,” said resident Saikat Banerjee, who was sitting at a tea stall across the road when the incident occurred.

Dilip’s younger brothers Bhola and Pintu, helped by some residents, took him to Vidyasagar Hospital but he was dead by then.

The victim used to run the grocery shop with Pintu, while Bhola, the youngest of the siblings, worked in the adjacent shop.

“We have some leads but the motive behind the murder is still not clear,” said Ajoy Ranade, the superintendent of police, South 24-Parganas.

Some suspects are being questioned.

Dilip used to stay with his family — parents, wife and son, two brothers and their wives — in a flat at Neel Sangha in Parnasree.

“I saw him lying in a pool of blood,” Bhola said, struggling to hold back his tears. According to Bhola, the family did not know of anyone whom Dilip might have antagonised.