Rajnath Singh's relative shot dead in Varanasi

A relative of Home Minister Rajnath Singh was shot dead in a Varanasi district village, police said on Wednesday.

According to information available, Arvind Singh, a petrol pump owner, was returning home after dropping his wife at the airport when three bike-riding youths intercepted him at Makhsudanpatti in Phoolpur late Tuesday.

They had a brief discussion with Singh after which they shot at him.

A bullet pierced his neck and he slumped to the ground, and the assailants fled.

Women who were harvesting the standing crop in a neighbouring field raised an alarm after which the villagers gathered.

Eyewitness accounts said that one of the assailants sat down in the car with Singh for a few minutes and then shot him at point blank range.

Superintendent of Police (rural) A.K. Pandey said that a .32 cartridge empty shell has been recovered from the crime scene but added that no arrests have been made so far.

BJP's Uttar Pradesh state unit spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak termed the killing as yet another example of lawlessness in the state.

"There is no policing in the state and every day scores of people are being killed in the state," he said.