Thirty-year-old Meer Hossain Khokon bought share of the London Palace Residential Hotel, located on the first and second floors of 63, Boro Moghbazar recently, but was yet to take over charge, said his younger brother, Suman.

"Three youths aged about 25 entered the hotel and asked for manager 'Khokon Shaheb' at around 1:30pm yesterday saying they had important discussion with him," said a hotel boy.

"As we said he was sleeping in Room No. 102 on the first floor, they rushed upwards," he told The Daily Star, preferring anonymity. He or the other messier did not find anything suspicious about the youths' attitude.

Suman, who assists his brother in his work, was at Room No. 111 on the same floor then. "I heard two gunshots in his room and rushed out to see what happened," he said at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).

"As soon as I opened the door of my room, I saw three youths, whom I failed to identify from behind, hurry down the stairs," he said. "When I entered my brother's room I found him lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood." Suman last saw a lungi-clad Khokon asleep in his bed 15 minutes ago.

He then rushed his brother to the DMCH where doctors declared him dead.

Hospital sources said a bullet wound was found in the right side of the victim's head.

Suman however failed to figure any reason behind the killing. But police and locals said Khokon confronted some influential residents and two alleged owners -- Alamgir and Shaheed -- over proprietorship of the hotel in last four months.

"We are not sure who is the owner of the hotel," the officer-in-charge (OC) of Ramna Police Station, Mahbubur Rahman, said.

Police arrested Shafiq, manager of Hotel Sweden Palace of the area, and picked up London Palace boy Shamim for interrogation, the OC said.

Khokon was serving as manager of the hotel for four years. Eldest of five brothers and two sisters, he lived at 'Renukunja' at 275, Uttar Shajahanpur with his wife, Happy, and a 7-day-old son. He hailed from Mudarchar in Sonargaon, Narayanganj.

In another incident, unidentified extortionists sprayed bullets on a fruit trader in West Rampura.

Anik, 20, son of one Abdul Jalil of 385/3, west Rampura, was sitting in his shop on the footpath opposite to the BTV Bhaban at around 2:30pm yesterday when local criminal Master Sohel and Shah appeared there.

"They asked to pay up Tk 20,000 they have been demanding for long," said a witness who took Anik to the DMCH. "Then they shot him in the right thigh and back."

A critically injured Anik is undergoing treatment at the DMCH.