People gather the shootout site

VADODARA/ANAND: Pragnesh Patel , an independent councillor of Borsad Nagarpalika , was injured when unidentified assailants opened fire at him outside his home in Annapurna Society in the town on Friday.

Pragnesh’s brother Sanket has registered a complaint with Borsad town police naming four BJP officebearers as suspects.

The shootout happened at around 8.30 am when Pragnesh was on his way to a nearby temple.

According to police sources, two assailants on bike opened four rounds of which one hit through his neck and another hit his stomach.

Pragnesh was rushed to a private hospital in Vadodara where he was operated upon and the two bullets removed from his body.

Sanket has registered a complaint naming Borsad city BJP unit president Dushyant Patel alias DC, Chandresh Patel, Harshad Patel and Mehul alias Moras Patel as suspects. Sanket has alleged that Dushyant, who had also served as president of Borsad nagarpalika in the past, had lost the civic polls in 2012 against Pragnesh.

“We are working on whatever leads received so far and examining the CCTV footage of the area,” said Saurabh Singh, Anand district superintendent of police .

“It looks like a 7.65 mm cartridge was used by the assailants,” he said, adding that forensic teams had reached the spot for further investigations.

The FSL team has recovered one bullet from petrol tank of a bike that was lying unattended near the spot of the incident.

The CCTV footage shows two people on bike waiting for Pragnesh outside his house. When he came out, one of them alighted from the bike and rushed towards him.

The independent councillor had earlier served one term as a BJP councillor in the local body. Later after he was denied a ticket by the party, he had contested as an independent and won.

