A 35-year-old journalist was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district by unidentified assailants on Saturday, reported The Indian Express.

Raghvendra Bajpai, was a local correspondent with a Hindi daily, according to India Today. He was reportedly killed on the Lucknow-Delhi National Highway at around 3.15 pm. Motor-borne assailants first rammed into his motorbike and then shot him.

Members of Bajpai’s family told The Indian Express they suspect the journalist was killed due to his reporting on irregularities in paddy procurement and stamp duty evasion in land purchases.

However, the police told the newspaper that neither Bajpai nor his family had reported receiving threats.

The police filed a first information report against unidentified persons for murder, The Indian Express reported. Statements of persons connected to the matter were being recorded to determine the exact motive behind the murder, the newspaper quoted Prashant Kumar, the inspector general of Lucknow range, as saying.

Four bullet wounds were found on Bajpai’s body, unidentified police officers told The Indian Express, adding that this indicated the attackers were determined to kill him.

Bajpai, who hailed from Sitapur’s Maholi area, had been working as a journalist for nearly a decade.

The body of the journalist was handed over to his family members after a postmortem. However, they refused to perform the last rites until the assailants were arrested, according to the newspaper.