Badaun/Lucknow, Nov 1 (PTI) Police on Tuesday arrested two persons in connection with the triple murder of a Samajwadi Party leader, his wife and his mother in Badaun, an official said.

The weapons allegedly used to commit the crime were also recovered, he said.

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Rakesh Gupta (58), a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and the current head of Sathra village and former block chief, was gunned down by four unidentified assailants at his home on Monday, the police had said.

His wife Sharda Devi (54) and mother Shanti Devi (80) also died in the attack, they added.

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Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dr OP Singh said Ravindra Dixit and his son were arrested and a rifle, a revolver, and a .312 bore country-made weapon used in the murder were seized.

The police are trying to nab the rest of the accused, Singh said.

Based on a complaint lodged by Gupta's brother, the police have registered an FIR against six people -- Ravindra Dixit and his son Sarthak, Ravindra's brother Nikhil and his son Archit, and two unidentified persons.

The police said past enmity was the motive behind the murder. The deceased had enmity with several villagers, including Ravindra Dixit. Some time ago, Ravindra Dixit's father was murdered and Gupta's name had emerged in connection with the crime, the police said.

Gupta's father and brother were also murdered in the past and the name of the Dixit family had cropped up in the case, the police said.

They added that the two families had been associated with different political parties -- the SP and the BJP.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav called the murder a "heart-wrenching massacre" committed by miscreants protected by those in power.

In a statement issued from the SP headquarters in Lucknow, Yadav said the murder was a fallout of a political rivalry.

Gupta, his wife and his mother were brutally shot dead by miscreants protected by those in power, Yadav said, adding that this heart-wrenching murder was a product of the state's marginalised law-and-order situation.

Yadav has also directed a seven-member SP delegation to visit Sathra village on Thursday on a fact-finding mission and to console the family, it said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)