Res­i­dents of Chi­tar Trace, Mo­hess Road, Debe, ran in­doors as loud gun­shots rang out just be­fore noon yes­ter­day.

When the gun­fire cleared, con­struc­tion work­er Ganesh Ram­char­i­tar was ly­ing dead near a drain.

Ram­char­i­tar, 42, lived alone at Ram­samooj Trace, Debe. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said a car pulled up as he was mix­ing ce­ment and one man fired two shots at point-blank range.

The sus­pect then sped off in the car. Ram­char­i­tar’s body re­mained ly­ing on the road­side for hours.

A res­i­dent, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said she heard two ex­plo­sions but did not re­alise they were bul­lets. When she saw Ram­char­i­tar ly­ing next to a drain, she called her son, who told her to run in­side.

Po­lice said he had been work­ing as a labour­er, as­sist­ing with the con­struc­tion of a house. His clos­est rel­a­tives live in Cana­da.

The neigh­bour de­scribed Ram­char­i­tar as hard­work­ing. She said Ram­char­i­tar had ar­rived at the con­struc­tion site around 7 am and spent sev­er­al hours mix­ing ce­ment be­fore the in­ci­dent.

PC Be­har­ry and PC Plaza from the South­west­ern Di­vi­sion re­spond­ed to the shoot­ing and were in­ter­view­ing res­i­dents as part of their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the killing can call Crimestop­pers at 800-TIPS.