howrah unidentified youths shot dead krishnapada bardhan a businessmancumpromoter at shibpur in howrah on sunday morning police are yet to make any arrestsgiving the murder a political colour trinamool congress chief mamata banerjee claimed that bardhan who was in his mid40s was killed for joining trinamool he was with cpm earlier and had joined trinamool recently she said bardhan a resident of naskarpara in shibpur had gone to his hardware shop next to a closed factory on andul road around 745 am on sunday a shop employee sukumar bhattacharya had just stepped out to get a cup of tea when he heard gunshots i rushed to the spot and saw three youths one of them wearing a helmet escaping on a bike towards vidyasagar setu he saidsukumar then rushed into the shop and saw his employer sitting unconscious on a chair with bullet injuries on his chest he was rushed to sskm hospital where he was declared dead sukumar told police that all three youths appeared to be under 25 years of age and that he had never seen them before tension gripped the locality and all shops were shut down by 9 am hundreds of locals led by trinamool congress supporters took to the streets and blocked andul road to protest bardhans murder it was only around 1 pm when howrah sp h k kusumakar arrived at the spot with raf personnel and promised that the culprits would be arrested that the protesters relentedhowever the locals resumed the roadblock after kusumakar left howrah trinamool congress mp ambika banerjee joined them and the roadblock continued till 5 pm trinamool workers alleged that bardhan was killed by cpm menbardhan who had recently started operating as a smalltime promoter as well joined trinamool after the lok sabha elections local cpm leaders said he was expelled from the party three years ago on charges of corruption refuting the trinamool allegation that cpm men killed him to exact revenge the leaders said they did not have any interest in an expelled party memberbardhans brother sukharanjan who had lodged complaints against some local dyfi leaders alleging harassment said his brother had been getting threat calls since he joined trinamoolpolice have started a probe and are trying to figure out the motive behind the murder howrah additional sp town sukesh jain though said prima facie it does not seem like a political murder the murder is probably a fallout of some business rivalry we have started interrogating people he added police are almost sure that the murder was committed by professional killers who are not locals sukharanjan alleged that cpm had arranged a meeting near bardhans shop on saturday evening and the murder plot was hatched there he also claimed to have heard some cpm members talking about his brother