Thaindian News

Agra, May 24 (IANS) Four people of a family - husband, wife and two children - were killed by a gang of unidentified men in the Fatehpur Sikri area near Agra in the early hours of Tuesday, police said here. Only the youngest child survived.

The family was attacked with axes, hand-pump rods and hammers at a road-side eatery in Jajau village close to the national highway, a police official said.

Thousands of angry villagers blocked the Agra-Jaipur highway for several hours till Deputy Inspector General of Police Aseem Arun and other senior officials reached the site and pacified them.

Rakesh Choudhary, 35, who ran the Namaskar dhaba-cum-restaurant on the national highway to Jaipur, wife Gudda Devi, 30, and two children - Akash, 10, and Dolly, 5 - were beaten to death with iron pipes, according to the official.

Two-year-old Rohit escaped the attack since he was away at his aunt’s place, the official added.

Police said the motive was not clear as valuables, including jewellery, were not missing. There is also suspicion that it could be a revenge attack over some old dispute.

A newspaper hawker was the first to reach the spot in the morning and see blood stains outside the restaurant. He informed the police.

The scene of the crime is not far away from a police picket, villagers said.

The protesters, who blocked the traffic, were angry with the delayed respone from the police, who, they said, took more than three hours to reach the spot.

Following protests, Sudhir Kumar, head of Fatehpur Sikri police station, was transferred.

Aseem Arun told reporters that the notorious Bawaria gang is suspected to be behind the attack.

Police in nearby Bharatpur, Mathura and Dholpur areas have been alerted, he said.