Patna: The jailor of the Beur model prison was shot dead by some unidentified gunmen who pumped several bullets into him on the busy Nala road last night (Mar 29, 2004), police said.

Narendra Singh, the jailor of the prison on the outskirts of the Bihar capital, was shot dead when he was alighting from the prison van, which had gone to drop him at his Nala Road residence.

Singh, who was immediately rushed to the nearby Magadh Hospital, was declared brought dead, the sources said.

The reason behind the incident was yet to be ascertained.

Police suspect the killing to be the handiwork of jailed People's War (PW) ultras, with whom Singh had a scuffle on March 2. Some of the naxalites had begun a fast-unto-death in the jail since March 23 against alleged corruption and high-handedness of the staff in the jail premises.

According to the FIR (first information report) registered by the driver of the van, Brij Kishore Singh, with the Kadamkuan police station, the scooter-borne assailants opened fire at the jailor the moment he alighted.

The driver said the slain jail official was threatened by some PW extremists after the scuffle that they would eliminate him. The PW had also circulated a pamphlet in some local newspapers threatening to take revenge for the alleged atrocities on their comrades.

Meanwhile, Bihar Jail Minister Basawan Bhagat, who immediately rushed to the hospital on hearing the news of Singh's killing, said that the jail official had received about 12 bullets from an automatic weapon.

Describing Singh as an upright officer, Bhagat said that he had written to the Home Department and the director general of police several times bringing to their notice the threat to the jail officials and sought bodyguards and revolvers for jail superintendents and jailors across the State. ''Had attention been paid to my request such an incident could have been avoided,'' he said.

Bhagat said he had also sent a recommendation to that inspector general (prisons) to shift the agitating PW naxalites to Bhagalpur jail but in vain.