A 20-year-old Briton has been charged with the murder of the Indian student Anuj Bidve, who was shot in the head in Salford on Boxing Day in an unprovoked incident.

The police said, Kiaran Stapleton, from the Ordsall area, has been charged with the murder and will appear before the City of Manchester Magistrates' Court today.

Bidve, 23, was shot in the head at point-blank range as he walked with friends near their hotel in the inner-city Ordsall district of Greater Manchester in the early hours of December 26.

A team of the Greater Manchester Police has travelled to Pune to meet the family of the victim, who was a postgraduate student of Microelectronics at Lancaster University. The 50,000 pounds reward is still on offer for information.