ahmedabad leading bjp dissident and former minister of state for home and revenue haren pandya was shot dead pointblank in his car outside law garden on wednesday morning just when he was about to begin his daily strollpandya 41 is survived by his wife jagruti and sons narma and karma assailants pumped six bullets into various parts of his body the identity and number of assailants are still unclearthe bulletriddled body of pandya lay slumped in his white maruti 800 gj 1 ap 4606 near the thakorebhai desai hall outside law garden for almost two hours before the police came in director general of police k chakravarthi said on the basis of preliminary investigations pandya was killed even before he could get out of the carpandya left home at 715 am for his usual morning walk in the garden before he could get out of the car an unidentified person carrying a 32 bore revolver is believed to have approached him and tapped on windowpane just as pandya lowered the tinted glass the assailant pumped six bullets into him however there are no eyewitnesses to the incident which the police find ironical since scores of people walk in the garden around that timepandya then still in the drivers seat slumped into the seat beside him as blood oozed out of his wounds two in neck two in stomach one on the right palm which he may have raised in selfdefence and one in the groin however only five bullets were extricated from his body he apparently passed out and the samsung mobile phone that he was clutching fell near the seat beside hima motorbike abandoned at the scene of crime created quite a flutter till it turned out to be that of pandyas close associate janaksinh parmar who informed the police control room first at 1025 am and then at 1039 am minutes later police mobile vehicles from navrangpura and ellisbridge police stations converged at the spot and immediately took pandya who was believed to be unconscious to the v s hospital pandya was admitted to the emergency ward and at 1130 am he was officially declared deadreconstructing the incident on the basis of anonymous calls received by the police by evening police officials said the assailant fled in an unmarked ambassador car vijaypal mahadev a security guard at the thakorbhai desai hall said when i woke at 9 am i saw a small crowd around the car i did not hear any bullet shots early in the morningstating that the state home department had no information about threat perception to pandya home secretary k nityanandam said after he resigned from ministership there were no indications to suggest that he would be a target of terrorist attack hence we did not think he was eligible to any extra security pandya himself did not tell us about any threat to his life he was freely moving around without any difficultynityanandam indicated that there could be two persons behind the attack