India, Aug. 12 -- A local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader was shot dead when he was returning home in Bengal's Bankura district late on Monday, police said.

Police said Sikandar Khan, president of a polling booth unit of TMC, was killed in the Sonamukhi area. He was shot multiple times in the back and the head outside Chakai village when he was on his motorcycle.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee took up this issue at a meeting with senior bureaucrats and police officers at Nabanna, the state secretariat, on Tuesday afternoon and asked them to be more vigilant.

Khan is the ninth TMC functionary to have been killed across the state since July 10, triggering political tension in the run-up to the 2026 assembly polls. TMC leaders have accuse...