MOSCOW: Two people were gunned down on Moscow’s streets overnight on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest in a spate of contract murders in the capital, Russian news agencies reported.

A former deputy mayor of the Chechen capital Grozny was shot three times in the head outside his home, Interfax quoted a police source as saying.

The man, 36-year-old Gilani Shepiyeva, had survived an assassination attempt in 2006.

Separately, an oil trader of Georgian origin was shot while walking his dog.

“The signs are this was most probably a contract killing,” Interfax quoted a police source as saying.

The incidents come after a well-known human rights lawyer and a young female journalist were gunned down in Moscow last month, amid a resurgence in contract killings, many thought to be connected to Chechnya.—AFP