GREATER NOIDA: BJP leader and Dadri Nagar Panchayat chairman Geeta Pandit 's husband Vijay Pandit(37) was shot dead by four unidentified people in Dadri area on Saturday night, after which a mob set ablaze 16 vehicles near a police station in protest.

The assailants came on two motorcycles and held the pistol at Pandit's temple and mouth and shot him dead when he was returning home from his brother's shop at Bramhpuri at around 8.30pm, police sources said.

Thereafter, they fired several rounds and one bullet hit the victim's chest too. Pandit, a former district BJP vice-president, fell down bleeding.

The assailants then fired in the air to scare away the people in the area and fled abandoning one motorcycle which went out of control and skidded sideways.

The villagers and BJP workers, on hearing about the incident, reached the site and a mob set ablaze around sixteen vehicles near Dadri Kotwali on G T Road.

They also stoned buses and other passing vehicles and police fired in air to control the mob which fired at the police team, the sources said.

District magistrate AV Rajamouli deployed additional forces drawn from neighbouring districts and PAC and Rapid Action too were pressed into service.

An injured Vijay Pandit was taken to Dadri's Mohan Swarup Hospital from where he was shifted to Ghaziabad Yashoda Hospital where doctors declared him dead.

One bullet hit Vijay Pandit in the mouth, another in chest and one behind the ear, police sources said.

"The situation is now under control. PAC has been deployed", said Brijesh Kumar Singh, SP(Rural), late tonight.

Two policemen were injured in skirmishes with the mob, police sources said.

BJP MP Mahesh Sharma demanded the arrest of the killers of Vijay Pandit and alleged there was jungle raj in the city as criminals were striking at will while the police failed to check rising crime. The killing of the BJP leader has "exposed" the law and order situation, he charged.

Vijay Pandit had led the election campaign for the BJP candidate in recent elections and received threats from unidentified people to keep himself away from campaigning. He had given a written complaint to Dadri police on April 2 in this regard, BJP sources said.

Vijay's brother runs a grocery shop on G T Road where shopkeepers downed the shutters of their business establishments and blocked the traffic in protest.