Prominent city builder shot

VADODARA, Feb 10: In A sensational incident, prominent city-based builder Upendra Patel, 50, was shot at from pointblank range, allegedly...

VADODARA, Feb 10: In A sensational incident, prominent city-based builder Upendra Patel, 50, was shot at from pointblank range, allegedly by a hired hitman, in the upmarket Alkapuri area of the city on Wednesday morning. Patel8217;s condition was critical, attendant doctors said in the evening.

While the police only said an alert had been sounded throughout the State and a watch mounted on the entry/exit points to the district, official sources told Express Newsline that the incident was an indication of the deepening mafia involvement in real estate affairs.

According to eye-witnesses, a scooter-borne youth, aged about 23 and dressed in a cotton jacket, fired a single shot at pointblank range as Patel8217;s Maruti Esteem came out of his 3, Utkanth Society, residence and neared the Alkapuri Club around 10.30 a.m. The builder was seated next to the driver; such was the force of the bullet that it went through the rolled-up window and pierced through Patel8217;s jaw before grazing his driver on the left shoulder.

Panic gripped the locality even as two real estate businessmen 8212; reportedly from Ahmedabad and Mumbai 8212; travelling in the backseat alerted his family members and, along with the businessman8217;s nephew Ashok, rushed him to the Bhailal Amin Hospital. The tension was apparent among hospital staff and the police as well; policemen have been deployed at Patel8217;s bedside as well.

The driver, Ghulam Mohammed Pathan, meanwhile, was reported to be out of danger.

Late in the evening, Ashok Patel was learnt to have filed a police complaint at the Sayajigunj station. A police spokesman said that the complainant had alleged that Patel8217;s relations with some rival builders 8212; namely Jayesh Dave, Kirti Soni and Himanshu Desai 8212; had soured in the recent past over a plot of land in Vadodara.

Though eyewitnesses tipped off the police about the assailant8217;s scooter number, the police said inquiries with the Regional Transport Office indicated it was false.

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According to sources, Patel, and a builder by the name of Ranu Bharwad, had been involved in a number of disputes with a number of top builders from city and one from Mumbai; a couple of cases over allegedly forged land-deals are also pending against Patel in the Gorwa and J P Road police stations.

This is about the fifth sensational land-related crime to be committed in the city in the past five years.

Police Commissioner J Mahapatra told Express Newsline that the police had made some headway in the case and opined that it was most probably a planned murder by a professional assailant, presumably from outside the State. He refused to elaborate further, saying the matter was under investigation.