Our Bureau
TURA/ Shillong: A trader from Chokpot bazaar in South Garo Hills was shot dead by suspected GNLA militants not far from a police station during a botched kidnapping attempt on Sunday morning.
Four masked men armed with automatic rifles and dressed in camouflage barged into the home of Satyanand Prasad, 45, and tried to forcibly take him away at gunpoint.
The trader who runs a shop in Chokpot bazaar and has been a resident of the area for several years refused to comply with the militants diktats.
In anger the armed ultras dragged him to the door and opened fire from their AK rifles killing him on the spot. He was shot as many as ten times.
The incident occurred approximately a hundred yards from Chokpot police station and police personnel on duty at the station initially presumed an attack was being launched on them.
“Since, the bazaar is situated very close to the Chokpot police station, on hearing the gun shots coupled heavy rain and thunder, the police personnel thought that the police station was attacked and immediately prepared to defend the police station,” SP Davis Nestell R Marak informed.
It was only after the victim’s teenage son came running to the police station that the source of the gun shots was known, the SP said, adding that due to power cut in the area, the miscreants easily managed to escape unnoticed.
The SP also informed that immediately after the incident, an operation was launched but nothing has been recovered so far except for empty cases of bullets.
“A case has already been registered and the post mortem has been completed. The body has been handed over to the family members on Sunday itself after the conducting the post mortem”, Marak said.
