Unknown criminals shot dead a trader and wounded a boy who along with a crowd was chasing the killers at a crowded Rupnagar market under Pallabi Police Station in the capital yesterday.

Three youths went to a wholesale rice shop at Rupnagar Abashik Kcndcrio Market at about 10:45am in the guise of customers and sprayed its owner Haji Delwar Hossain, 44 with bullets.

With seven bullets, most of them in the chest, Del war collapsed on the floor and died instantly.

The criminals shot Jamal Uddin, 14, a puffed rice vendor, in the chest and a leg as he pelted stone at the windshield of the cab carrying the fleeing criminals.

Jamal is undergoing treatment at Chest Disease Hospital, Mohakhali in a critical condition.

The criminals left the spot in the same Navana yellow taxicab by which they came, said an eyewitness.

Family sources said Del war had a feud with Nasir Uddin, a former ward commissioner contestant, after a Tk 20,000 cheque that Nasir gave to Dclwar bounced recentiy.

Later police arrested Nasir Uddin, suspecting his hand in the killing.

Mohammad Zakir, manager of the rice shop and a cousin of the victim, said about one and a half hour after the killing, he received a phone call from one introducing himself as top criminal Ashiq who said he killed Delwar after being rcfusedTk two lakh as toll.

He said the killers threatened him and the deceased trader’s eldest son Mehedi, telling them to pay the demanded toll.

The caller also told him to hand over the mobile phone cither to the officcr-in-charge (OC) of Pallabi Police Station or to any Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) official," Zakir said, adding that later the OC talked to the caller.