‘My sister and I just hid under the bed’

A mere look at Durgesh, understood to have been his friend for several years, was enough to incense Dinesh Rawal, out to purchase milk from the neighbourhood milk booth, beyond the point of no return.

A mere look at Durgesh, understood to have been his friend for several years, was enough to incense Dinesh Rawal, out to purchase milk from the neighbourhood milk booth, beyond the point of no return.

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"My brother was walking home from the railway junction near our house when Dinesh saw him. My mother, who was on her way to buy some milk and vegetables, saw my brother but guessed something was wrong when, instead of meeting her, he just darted past and ran up the stairs of our house," said Prabhat, 20-year-old Durgesh Tiwari's younger brother.

A bewildered Shobha (40), who saw a country-made pistol-toting Dinesh charge behind her eldest son, tried to stop him - and received two bullets in her stomach.

Startled at two gun shots ringing dangerously close to his house, her husband Sharda Prasad was pumped with three bullets as he climbed down the stairs to investigate the source of the sound.

"We didn't know what had happened, so my sister Sargam and I hid below the bed as Durgesh went to the terrace. When we went downstairs, we saw both our parents lying in a pool of blood," a visibly-stirred Prabhat said.

A PCR call was made as soon as the siblings could gain their composure even as Dinesh and his two accomplices, friends from the neighbourhood, made their escape.

The middle-aged couple's bodies were rushed to the adjacent GTB Hospital where Shobha was declared brought dead on arrival and her husband succumbed to his injuries during an operation to extract the three bullets lodged in his chest and stomach.

"We have identified Dinesh as the prime suspect and registered a case of murder against him at the Harsh Vihar Police Station,” said Sanjay Kumar Jain, deputy commissioner of police (northeast).