TIMERGARA, May 12: Four members of a family, three of them brothers, were shot dead by unidentified attackers in village Dherai Kad, some 15 kilometres from here on Sunday night, police and residents told Dawn.

Mohammad Nazir reported to the Balambat police station that his three sons, Izhar 21, Mukhtiar 19, Suleman 12 and their cousin Rahimullah, 12, went out for Isha prayer but they did not return till midnight. He said that a villager Chamnay Khan, informed him on telephone late in the night that his sons and nephew

had been killed and their bodies were lying in the nearby fields.

Mohammad Nazir said that when he and his relatives went to the place, they found the four bodies lying in a pool of blood.

The police quoted Nazir as saying that he or his family had no enmity or dispute with anyone in the area and that he was unable to nominate any one in the case.

The Balambat police have registered a case against unidentified assailants.

The bodies were taken to the DHQ hospital, Timergara on Monday morning for autopsy where doctors said that the bodies bore bullet wounds.

The District Police Officer, Suhail Khan, when contacted, told this reporter that the culprits could not escape from the law and they would be brought to the book very soon.