Bimal Chanda, a 59-year-old man with deep ties to the northwest Bronx community where he lived for nearly three decades died yesterday morning from injuries suffered during a severe beating on Saturday morning.

In a cruel twist, Chanda and his family were in the final stages of moving out of the neighborhood, near West 190th Street and Grand Avenue, because of concerns about increasing crime, according to Chanda’s longtime friend, Mohammed Ali, who is a member of Community Board 7.

At around 9 a.m., Saturday morning, Chandra left the family’s longtime apartment building, 30 W. 190th St., to pick up some packing tape. When he returned, police say Chandra was attacked by two men in the second floor stairwell and beaten with an unknown metal object.

Chanda was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, but succumbed to his injuries, which included severe internal bleeding, yesterday morning at 6 a.m. Police immediately declared his death a homicide and said the investigation is ongoing.  Though police say Chanda was the victim of a mugging, Ali is skeptical and searching for other explanations. He said Chanda still had more than $90 and his cell phone in his pocket following the beating.

Ali, who lives nearby and has been outspoken about crime problems (he was robbed at gunpoint in his home in 2007), helped organized a prayer gathering and press conference tonight at 7 p.m. at the  funeral home in Parkchester (1430 Union Port Road)  where the family is holding a memorial service for Chanda. (Parkchester is also the area Chanda and his family, including his wife and teenage daughter, were moving to.)  He said Assemblyman Peter Rivera, State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. and Councilman Fernando Cabrera will be attending the press conference in an attempt to bring light to a neighborhood that he believes is under siege.

On Tuesday evening, in an apparently unrelated incident, a 35-year-old man was stabbed to death just a block away from Chanda’s beating. Police have not identified the victim yet.