Nadeem, who was given police protection, was attacked when he came out of house

Social activist and Congress worker Nadeem Ahmed Sayed, one of the witnesses in the case of Naroda-Patiya massacre during the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat, was stabbed to death here on Saturday morning.

He was killed when he came out of his house in the Juhapura locality at 7.35 a.m., the police said. Family members rushed a profusely bleeding Nadeem to the municipal V.S. hospital, where doctors pronounced him “brought dead.”

As a witness, Nadeem had been provided police protection on the orders of the Supreme Court, but it was not clear where the police guard was at the time of the attack or if he came out alone.

Family sources said Nadeem was not very comfortable with the police surrounding him all the time and often used to slip out.

Deputy Commissioner N.C. Patel said the police believed Nadeem was killed due to personal enmity and the attack had nothing to do with his social or RTI activism or political affiliations.

The police suspect that a local builder, against whom Nadeem had recently filed a complaint for alleged attempts to influence witnesses in the Naroda-Patiya case as well as for illegal construction activities, could be behind the murder.

The police were also not ruling out the involvement of a local bootlegger. Nadeem, who at times functioned as an informant too, told the police that Mushir's sons were involved in the recent attack on a group of policemen and the torching of a police jeep by a mob at Juhapura, where the police had gone to recover some cows destined for a slaughter house.

A couple of months ago, the police recorded Nadeem's statement in the Naroda-Patiya case.