Thaindian News

London, Sep 7 (IANS) A hunt is on for the killer of three members of a British family and an cyclist at an Alpine beauty spot, a media report said Friday.

The vicctims, Iraqi-born aircraft engineer Saad Al-Hilli, his dentist wife Iqbal and her mother, were shot in the forehead through the car windows as they sat parked in a remote forest layby, the Daily Express reported.

A French cyclist thought to have been a witness was found shot dead nearby, BBC reported.

The family was on a caravan holiday near Lake Annecy, France. The couple’s seven-year-old daughter Zeinab managed to escape from the car before being shot in the shoulder. She was in a medically induced coma in a French hospital.

While Zeena, four-year-old sister of Zeinab, survived unhurt as she hid herself in the footwell of their car underneath her mother’s body for eight hours.

Officers believe the family may have been lured to the spot for a planned execution by a hitman.

Police were stunned by the ruthlessness of the attack by a clearly expert gunman who fired “clinical shots to the centre of the forehead”.

According to French police sources, the clinical manner of the killings - with a total of 15 shots fired - pointed towards a planned execution.