A senior official of a mining developer-cum-operator (MDO) firm engaged by power utility NTPC was shot dead in Jharkhand's Hazaribag district on Tuesday, police said.
Two gunmen fired at Sharad Kumar, a senior vice president of the MDO, from close range near Barkagaon Forest Guest House in the Maoist-hit district when he was on the way to the site office of the Chatti Bariatu coal mine in an SUV, they said.
His bodyguard was also injured in the attack, Superintendent of Police Manoj Ratan Chothe said.
Mr Kumar was rushed to a private hospital where doctors declared him dead. He was shot in the chest and the stomach, police said.
The body was sent to a hospital in Ranchi for post-mortem examination, they said.
His bodyguard suffered a gunshot wound on the waist, and is undergoing treatment, they said.
The gunmen wore masks and appeared to be sharpshooters, Mr Chothe said, adding that the motive of the murder was yet to be clear but the attack seemed to be planned.
A case has been registered at the Barkagaon police station, he said, stating that all nearby police stations have been put on alert.
Arrests are yet to be made, police said.
The two shooters reached the spot well in advance, hid their motorcycle behind a bush and were waiting for Kumar's car. As the car reached the spot, they blocked the road and fired at it from a close range, police sources said.
They then fled the spot on their hidden motorcycle.
It was also learnt that Kumar had received threats over the phone, demanding extortion.
"This incident will have an impact on coal production as tension and panic prevail in the region," said an NTPC official.
"It happened at a time when the NTPC was targeting to produce 34 million tonnes of coal in the current fiscal for meeting the requirements of power plants," he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
