Thaindian News

Guwahati, Nov 22 (IANS) Unidentified gunmen Saturday shot dead a journalist in Assam, the second journalist to be killed this week in the region.Police said two motorcycle riders killed 30-year-old Jagajit Saikia in the heart of Kokrajhar town, about 250 km west of Guwahati.

Saikia was talking to some people outside his office in the afternoon when the assailants pumped six bullets from a small weapon from close range, a police official said over telephone.

Saikia was the Kokrajhar district reporter for the mass circulation Amar Asom, a vernacular daily published from Guwahati. He was declared “brought dead” at a hospital in Kokrakjar.

“We are yet to identify the killers or the motive behind the attack,” the official said. Witnesses and police said the gunmen sped away after the attack.

Saikia leaves behind his wife and a two-and-half-year-old daughter.

“We don’t know why he was killed as he didn’t have enmity with anybody,” Saikia’s brother said.

The area where the killing took place is dominated by the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which has been blamed for a string of recent bomb blasts in Assam that killed 90 people.

On Monday, unidentified assailants shot dead Konsam Rishikanta, 22, a trainee sub-editor working for the Imphal Free Press, an English daily, in Imphal, capital of the adjoining Manipur.