Unknown masked assailants shot dead a National Investigation Agency (NIA) officer in front of his wife and children when the family was returning from a wedding.
The assassins, on two motorbikes, pumped 16 bullets into Tanzil Ahmed from close range after they chased his car down during the early hours of Sunday.
His wife, too, was critically injured and is admitted to a hospital in Noida. However, the children in the rear seat miraculously escaped.
According to the autopsy reports, five of the bullets went through Ahmed, three grazed the skin and eight were retrieved from his body.
48-year-old Tanzil Ahmed, an NIA inspector for the past six-and-a-half years, was involved in the investigation of a number of important cases, including the Pathankot airbase attack and the Burdwan blasts of 2014. Strangely, NIA has rejected his involvement in the Pathankot case.
“It was a targeted killing, almost like a hit job. NIA’s DIG heading its Lucknow office and UP ATS sleuths are now in Bijnor to probe the murder from all angles, including a possible terror link. NIA is assisting the police in the investigation,” a senior NIA officer told the Times of India (TOI).
Investigations revealed that Tanzil bought a property four years before. The property was apparently owned by three brothers—one of them wanted to buy it from the other two.
“But that dispute appears too weak to trigger such a violent retaliation,” said a senior police officer to TOI.
According to Tanzil’s family members, the assailants took less than a minute to fire more than two dozen bullets. The NIA officer’s brother too was in a car with other members of the family behind his car.
