CHENNAI: A 50-year-old travel agent was shot dead by unidentified bike-borne assailants near his shop on the busy Erulappan Street at Sowcarpet on Tuesday evening.
According to the police, the deceased, Babu Singh, was a native of Rajasthan. He had been operating a travel agency, Shiva Shakthi, from Sowcarpet for the past eight years. On Tuesday, Singh had just reached the three-storey building housing his office and was standing at the parking lot when two bike-borne men opened fire at him. Of the three rounds fired, one hit Singh on the chest, killing him on the spot.
“Minutes before the shootout, I saw and waved at him. Later, I went inside my house on the same building. I returned when I heard screams and found Singh dead,” said Harish, a CA student.
Though the police were not clear on the motive, they were studying the CCTV camera footage to ascertain the identity of the assailants. A spent cartridge was recovered from the spot.
Babu Singh, a resident of Choolai, had moved to the city around two decades ago. “He is the father of a 16-year-old boy and a 20-year-old girl,” said Manish, a longtime friend of Singh.
He ran a travels agency ‘Shiva Shakthi’ in a poorly lit narrow street in Sowcarpet for the past eight years. Police have lifted the recordings of a CCTV camera installed in a building in the street.
Sources said the entire episode was recorded in the camera.
Though officials were not clear on the motive, they were studying CCTV footage to identify the assailants. A spent cartridge was recovered from the spot