CUTTACK: Malgodown, the biggest commodities market of the State, was numbed when miscreants gunned down a trader inside his shop during the busiest business hour on Wednesday afternoon. The ferocity of the strike and the ease with which the assailants walked their way out of the crowded marketplace fuelled panic among the business fraternity here.
Three persons, armed with pistols, came to Mohammad Farooq’s shop around 4.30 pm and ordered his staff to go out. As the four employees moved out, they pumped bullets into the defenceless Farooq from point blank range. With Farooq slumping to the ground, the assailants resorted to blank firing in the air to clear their escape path. They rushed towards the motorcycles parked at a safe distance from the crowd and fled.
According to eyewitnesses, the whole incident occurred over a few minutes and the miscreants had escaped before the realisation dawned. Farooq had already succumbed when police rushed to the spot. He is said to have been hit by more than five bullets.
The incident appears to be perfectly planned and executed. They pumped several bullets into Farooq to make sure he was dead. While the motive behind the gruesome killing is yet to be ascertained, police sources said the trader was the only target. Farooq was a leading pulses trader in the market. “We have got some leads. The case will be cracked soon”, DCP Sanjiv Arora said.
The panic stricken businessmen have, meanwhile, approached the police and district administration for providing security to them. The Cuttack Chamber of Commerce (CCC) called Malgodown bandh on Thursday and met the DCP and Collector Nirmal Chandra Mishra on the issue.
Malgodown had earlier been provided with armed security at three exit points. Four armed policemen each were posted at the exit points on Chhatra Bazaar, Overbridge and Railway shed area. However, they have been withdrawn since two years. “If they had been in position, the miscreants could not have escaped so easily”, CCC joint secretary Srikant Sahoo said.
Sanjiv Arora said the security will be reinstated soon.