A real estate developer was shot dead at point-blank range in full public view on a road in Pilkhana, Howrah, early on Wednesday morning.
Mohammad Shafique, 27, was talking to a man with several people looking on or walking by as the residential neighbourhood prepared for the early morning Ramzan rituals. Suddenly, a man loitering close by shot him in the head from behind and he dropped to the ground.
Most of the onlookers quickly dispersed. As Shafique lay on the road, the shooter and the man the victim had been talking to pumped several bullets into his body. They ran away only after satisfying themselves that Shafique was dead.
A CCTV camera captured the murder and has helped police confirm the assassins’ identities, officers said.
It was around 4.10am and Shafique had stepped out of his home to buy food for sehri, the pre-dawn meal taken before the start of the daylong fast during the holy month.
“He called to ask me what I would like to have for sehri,” Shafique’s wife Farhad said.
“He said he was coming (soon). After some time, I received a call that said my husband was injured. Later, we were told that he was no more.”
Protest at Pilkhana on Wednesday evening against the murder
Video footage, purportedly from a CCTV camera, shows Shafique talking to a man in a vest. Another man in a black cap, who is a couple of yards to Shafique’s right, takes a couple of lazy paces forward, stoops and spits on the ground, pulls out a gun, turns round and shoots Shafique point-blank from behind.
The footage also shows the subsequent shots fired by the two gunmen into Shafique’s motionless body before fleeing. Shafique’s elder sister Anwari Begum identified the killers as Sheikh Haroon and alleged arms dealer Rohit.
“My brother’s fault was that he was protesting against Haroon’s illegal activities. Now we want justice. If the police do not help us, we will take the law into our own hands,” she said.
Officers from the Howrah police commissionerate said the accused had been identified. “Preliminary investigations have revealed that there was a financial dispute between the victim and the assailants. We are looking for the killers,” Howrah police commissioner Akash Magharia said.
Many residents blamed the killing on an alleged nexus between criminals and Trinamool leaders.
Local BJP leader Umesh Rai alleged that Haroon was a Trinamool youth leader and was close to Howrah North MLA Goutam Chowdhury.
“Photographs showing them riding a bike together are all over the Internet,” Rai alleged.
He said Rohit was an arms dealer and had been arrested before, and accused the MLA of sheltering criminals.
Chowdhury denied the allegations and said it was “not possible to verify the backgrounds of all the people I meet daily” as a public representative.
No one had been arrested till evening.
A mob set fire to a vehicle belonging to one of the accused in the afternoon, calling for his arrest. Hundreds came out on the roads of Pilkhana in the evening, demanding “justice”.
Police pickets have been put up in the area and raids are on to arrest the suspects, officers said.
Calcutta and its neighbourhood has been witnessing a spurt in shootings. On Tuesday, a man took two bullets in Park Circus during a quarrel over the alleged theft of a soft drinks bottle by a child. The victim is under treatment in hospital.