Armed robbers waylaid and shot dead a 39-year-old Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) head constable in East Champaran district of Bihar soon after Wednesday midnight after he refused to part with money and other valuables.

He was returning home with his ailing mother and elder brother after visiting a private hospital in the state capital.

Police claimed to have arrested one person involved in the killing and were conducting raids to nab others.

The deceased, Dharmendra Kumar, was a member of the 18th battalion of the force, and was deployed at Rajnagar in Madhubani district along the Indo-Nepal border. He was on a 10-day leave to ensure better medical treatment for his mother, who stayed at his native place at Bagaha village under Ghodasahan block in East Champaran.

“We had gone to a hospital in Patna with our mother and had taken a train to return home. We alighted at Bapudham station in Motihari. My brother had parked his motorcycle at the railway station. We rode pillion while he drove the motorcycle,” Dharmendra’s elder brother Manoj Kumar told reporters.

“Our village is around 30km from the railway station. Four persons on motorcycles stopped us midway and asked us to give whatever money and valuables we were carrying. Dharmendra objected and one of them shot him,” Manoj added.

Manoj and his mother rushed Dharmendra to a hospital in Motihari where the doctors declared him “brought dead”.

“Miscreants shot Dharmendra near Lalbegia village under Chiraiyya police station. The bullet hit him on his left side and seems to have pierced his chest. We took immediate action and have arrested one person involved in the incident. Raids are going on to nab all the others involved in the killing,” Sikrahna sub-divisional police officer Ashok Kumar said.

The SB personnel’s body has been sent for postmortem.

An SSB jawan had committed suicide at his outpost in West Champaran district on Wednesday.