Ranchi: Three armed men on a bike took away the motorcycle of a finance company employee and snatched Rs 19,000 from him at Tiputola Hurhuri village under Ratu thana area, around 20km from here, on Tuesday morning.

Around 8am, the trio first intercepted Bharat Finance Company employee Jitendra Kumar's (30) bike before decamping away with the cash and vehicle at gunpoint, a local resident said.

Ratu office in-charge Amod Narayan Singh said Kumar was on way to Ratu after collecting the money from NGOs when the incident took place.

"The agent had collected the money from women self-help groups and was returning to Ratu when he was attacked. Luckily, he wasn't assaulted," Singh said.

He said the incident could have been averted if he had followed the standard operating procedure of carrying cash.

"Employees of every micro-finance company operating in the area have been asked to inform police in case they go to villages to deliver or collect cash. Every employee follows this order but Kumar did not. We are trying to find out why he did not follow the norm and invited trouble," Singh said.

In another incident, farmer Manga Oraon (45) was shot dead at Kanjia village under Mandar thana area, around 40km from here, on Monday night.

He had gone to sleep at his makeshift house in the field, about 500 metres from his residence in the village, after dinner, when he was killed by an unknown person.

"His (Oroan's) family came to know about the murder on Tuesday morning when they went to the field as they generally do every day," a local resident said.

Mandar office in-charge Ram Narayan Singh said Oroan was shot in the chest.

"The victim took a bullet in his right chest. We recovered a .315 cartridge from the place of occurrence," Singh said and added that the body had been sent for post-mortem examination at RIMS.

Singh said the matter was under investigation and so far there was no clue who the killer was.

He said the victim did not have any criminal background and initial investigations also suggest that he had enmity with none.