A Guwahati-based businessman was shot dead on Monday in front of the bank he was visiting to “deposit his sales proceeds” by two unidentified motorcycle-borne youths, police said.

The victim, 62-year-old Ranjit Bora, was the distributor of the milk and dairy products manufactured by West Assam Milk Producers’ Co-operative Union Ltd. (WAMUL) under the brand name Purabi.

The deceased, a resident of Kahilipara, was shot by the youths around noon inside his car parked outside the ICICI Bank branch at Panjabari, the police said, adding the assailants fled away with “something” from the car.

Bora was rushed to the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital by the police where he was declared brought dead around 12.44pm.

A bullet had passed through his neck, a doctor said. GMCH is about 10km from the place of occurrence of the incident.

“The deceased had come to the bank but was intercepted by the youth before he could get out of his car. We don’t know what they took away from the car. He received bullet injuries in the neck region. We are going through the CCTV footage,” a police official said.

The incident prompted the Wamul (Purabi Dairy) management to hold back-to-back meetings to allay fears among other “shocked” distributors and find a way on shifting all financial transactions to the online mode to prevent a repeat.

Purabi insiders said Bora, one of the 12 distributors of Purabi Dairy products in the city, used to visit the bank every day to deposit money for against procurement of products from the dairy, located about 400 feet opposite the bank.

“Since Sunday was a holiday, he could have been carrying around Rs 2.5 lakh in cash to deposit. It is shocking. Other distributors are understandably in a state of panic,” one of them said.

He added: “Our management is discussing how to shift the entire transaction online for the safety of everyone and prevent a repeat. The distributors do their transactions online for which they have to deposit the cash they collect from the retailers or shops. Now we are trying to see how we can get everyone to transact online.”

Purabi Dairy markets milk and milk products to the tune of 80,000 to 85,000 litres of milk per day