The Random House Unabridged Dictionary provides three definitions for "hatchet man"

(1) a professional murderer.
(2) a writer or speaker who specializes in defamatory attacks, as on political candidates or public officials.
(3) a person whose job it is to execute unpleasant tasks for a superior, as dismissing employees.

In a shocking and very sad story out of India today is an instance where the first and the third met and the third was the worse off for it The first had a name, Lalit Chodhary and he was the CEO of the Indian operations of an Italian auto parts manufacturer that recently dismissed quite a few employees.

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who sacked them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi. Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, a manufacturer of car parts that has its headquarters in Italy, died of severe head wounds on Monday after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said. The incident, in Greater Noida, followed a long-running dispute between the factory’s management and workers demanding better pay and permanent contracts. ... Mr Choudhary, who was married with one son, had called a meeting with more than a hundred former employees who had been dismissed after an earlier outbreak of violence at the plant. He wanted to discuss a possible reinstatement deal.

Workplace violence happens wherever there is work, but India seems to have a particular problem of late with angry protests against its auto and other heavy industries:

A spokesman for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said: “Such a heinous act is bound to sully India’s image among overseas investors.” The murder has stoked fears that outbreaks of mob rule risk jeopardising the sub-continent’s economic rise. Thousands of violent protesters recently forced Tata, the Indian conglomerate that owns Land Rover and Jaguar, to halt work on a plant being built to produce the world’s cheapest car, the £1,250 Nano. The move could result in £200 million in investment costs being written off. The billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani said that the Nano crisis showed how protesters were creating “a fear psychosis to slow down certain projects of national importance”. Other companies, including Vedanta, the London-listed mining company, have encountered similar problems in India.

It's hard for an outsider to know if these are angry ex-employees engaging in grassroots protests or whether this is the rent-a-mob/shakedown industry looking for a bigger piece of the action. The statement released by the late Mr. Choudhary's employer hints at something even darker:

In a statement issued from Rivoli,Italy, Graziano said that some of Mr Choudhary’s attackers had no connection with the company.