Guwahati, Nov 21 : A distributor of Purabi Dairy succumbed to injuries after being reportedly shot from point blank range by bike-borne assailants in the Panjabari area on Monday.
According to sources, Ranjit Bora, a distributor of products manufactured by West Assam Milk Producers’ Co-operative Union Ltd (WAMUL), popularly known as Purabi Dairy, since 2010, had parked his vehicle near a private bank to deposit money collected from the previous day, when the miscreants fired at him, injuring him grievously.
Sources said the assailants, who had apparently kept track of Bora, followed him and fired at him when he was about to disembark from his white Wagon-R vehicle (bearing registration number AS-01-BH-5022). Thereafter, the miscreants decamped with cash, amounting to about Rs 2.50 lakh that Bora had carried with him to deposit in the bank.
A resident of Kahilapara here, Bora was subsequently taken to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) in a critical condition, where he was declared dead.
Commissioner of police, Guwahati, Harmeet Singh informed media persons at the incident site that police have initiated a preliminary investigation and that leads have been gathered to trace the assailants.
“The assailants will be traced, but as of now we cannot disclose anything as investigation is underway…The DCP is here and I am supervising the investigation. Give us some time and we can assure you that the perpetrators of the crime will not go unpunished,” Singh told mediapersons.
An employee of Purabi Dairy informed that Bora regularly deposits the proceeds collected from the sale of the dairy products at the bank.
“He was an amiable person and we cannot think of him having any enmity with anyone,” the employee said.
Expressing dismay at the shooting incident in broad daylight, a neighbour of Bora said that it was hard to fathom that a person could be shot like this during peak hours and in a populated area like Panjabari.
“There is hardly any security for the general public amid growing crimes. However, we want the police to immediately track and punish the assailants,” he said.
Back in February this year, a trader, Avdesh Yadav, was shot near the latter’s Chatribari residence here even as the police could apprehend the key accused from Bihar within a month of the crime.
Such incidents are disturbing even as the overall crime rate in the city had dropped by around 48 percent in the first seven months of this year.
“The crime rate in the city has fallen from 11,923 cases during January-July of 2021 to 6,236 cases in the corresponding period this year,” the city police commissioner had informed in August.