NEW DELHI: Assailants shot dead three members of a family, picking them off one by one outside their southeast Delhi house , in a gruesome killing spree on Saturday night which police suspect was triggered by a long-running dispute over parking .

Two of the family’s neighbours were arrested on Sunday. Police suspect one of them to be directly involved in the killing. The victims — Om Prakash Mishra, 50, his wife and son Amit alias Rinku, 24 — lived in a two-storeyed house in Om Nagar near Badarpur.

Locals said two men got into an argument with Amit as he was parking his bike and shot him. Om Prakash and his wife were shot as they came out of their house on hearing the gunshot.

The killing of three family members in Badarpur area of southeast Delhi appears to be a planned attack, police said. The two assailants were waiting at the spot around 9.45pm on Saturday, when Amit, 24, returned from work. As he was parking his bike, the two got into an argument with him over parking.

The men started hitting Amit, and one of them pulled out a pistol and shot him. He slumped to ground. On hearing the gunshot, his father Om Prakash rushed out. He was shot twice. He too collapsed beside a staircase leading to the neighbour’s house.

Om Prakash’s wife, Shanti Devi, met a similar end as she came out of the house. After this, the gunman fired several more rounds. Amit’s younger brother Tinku, 19, who had seen the shooting from the entrance of the lane, was also shot at when the gunman noticed him there. He managed to evade the bullets and hid inside a neighbour’s house.

“The gunmen also fired two-three rounds at the door of our house where I was hiding to save my three children,” said Sarla, Om Prakash’s daughter-in-law.

While Amit died on the spot, Om Prakash and Shanti succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

Police said 8-10 rounds were fired from a single country-made pistol. Locals said there were two guns although none of them could say how many men were involved in the attack.

One of the neighbours said the family had a dispute shared parking space with a man identified as Veer Singh, who lived across the road. “The dispute has been running for at least a year. They had fought bitterly over parking last year,” said one of the neighbours.

Veer Singh, along with another local named Sachin, has been arrested. Sachin had earlier got into a fistfight with Amit. Police said the two are being interrogated to find out the immediate motive behind the killings. “We are also trying to recover the murder weapon,” said a police officer.

A team of forensic official reached the spot on Sunday and lifted samples for analysis. Police are also questioning other members of the Mishra family as well as the kin of the arrested duo. They suspect that Sachin was roped in by Veer Singh to wipe out the family.

Others added Veer Singh had a cordial relationship with the Mishras which turned sour over the past year.

