Raipur, Aug 27 - Leftist guerrillas Thursday shot dead a man in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Rajnandgaon district for extorting money from traders in their name, police said.

'Maoists raided the house of 35-year-old Jailal Kanwar and took him to an open ground and shot him dead,' Bharat Notyia, station in-charge of Baghnadi, where the incident took place, told IANS on the phone.

'As per preliminary investigations, the rebels killed Kanwar for extorting money from small traders by posing as a Maoist leader,' he added.

Incidents of extortion in the name of the Maoists, mainly by unemployed youths, are being regularly reported, mainly from state's southern Bastar and northern Surguja regions.