Patna, Jan. 10: Unidentified criminals killed a city-based businessman here today.
The criminals gunned down Surendra Agrawal, a businessman dealing in iron and steel and proprietor of a school in Siliguri, near his shop on Exhibition Road around 11 am and escaped in an Ambassador car, leaving behind no clues on their motive.
?Prima facie, it appears to be a murder perhaps caused by personal enmity. The victim?s family has not mentioned anything about extortion threats so far,? senior superintendent of police N.H. Khan said.
The body was taken to Patna Medical College and Hospital for post-mortem, where angry family members of Agrawal and other businessmen of the area reportedly prevented Khan from taking a look at the body and raised slogans against the police.
They accused the police of failing to ensure the safety of traders and businessmen in the city.
Though there were no reports of extortion calls, one could gather from the family members that Agrawal had been upset for a few days for some unknown reason. ?Agrawal could have been under some kind of pressure. He also could have received an unreported extortion call,? a source said.
Members of the trading community ? who have given the government 72 hours to rescue abducted plywood trader Ajit Kumar Rastogi ? today once again voiced their protests over the deteriorating law and order situation and vowed to launch an agitation.
Rastogi was kidnapped on Saturday night, following which the traders issued the 72-hour ultimatum.
In a major breakthrough, Kotwali police claimed to have busted an inter-state gang following the seizure of six vehicles. ?The clue came with the seizure of a Mahindra Bolero from a place near Patna Junction on Saturday. The vehicle belonged to the Bihar Rajya Bhandar Nigam. It was stolen in July last year and allegedly sold by Amitdhari Singh of Paliganj to Ashraf Hussain, who used it as a taxi. We raided a place in Paliganj on the statement of the driver, Muhammad Salim, and recovered five other expensive vehicles from the house of Singh,? inspector Rajendra Singh said.
?We have laid our hands only on those who were in charge of the disposal of the vehicles. We hope to arrest the others involved in the racket,? he added. ?One of the six seized vehicles was registered in Manipur, which shows the racket is an inter-state one,? Singh said.
The state police, however, are yet to make progress in the rescue of abducted doctor U.K. Raja.