LAHORE: Eight members of a family, including three children, were found murdered on Tuesday afternoon in their double-storey rented house in E-1 Block of Johar Town, police said.

Of the eight people, seven had head injuries while the eighth one had blood stains on his left hand and face.

The murdered people who included three brothers and their five family members sent shock waves across the neighbourhood after news channels flashed the tragic incident.

The family had been living in the house for the last two decades.

Neighbours and police said no body had witnessed the movement of any suspect(s) at or around the house.

The discovery of eight bodies alerted police authorities who immediately dispatched policemen, mobile forensic laboratories and investigators to the crime scene.

Those found murdered are Shahid Iqbal, 43, his wife Farzana, 41, and their children – Afaq, 13, and Amna, 8; Zahid Iqbal, 50, his wife Naseem, 45, and daughter Areeba, 6, and 55-year-old Nazeer Ahmed, the brother of Shahid and Zahid. Farzana and Naseem were also sisters.

Shahid was a construction contractor and Zahid a lecturer in a private college, while Nazeer was jobless and a cancer patient. Their other brothers included Wajid Iqbal, a lawyer, while one who is a doctor, lives in the US and two others are Jehanian residents.

Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Abdul Jabbar Rana told Dawn that police were alerted by a man around 3:22pm about the killings. He said police arrived at the crime scene in seven minutes and secured the place.

He said the caller, who was the maternal nephew of the brothers, had come to the house to deliver a wedding card. He found the main door open and the family members lying dead on their beds.

The DIG said the police had got statements of other family members who arrived there later.

He said it appeared the seven people, who were asleep, were hit on their heads by a blunt weapon as marks of wounds were found on their skulls and faces.

Mr Jabbar said a chemical was also found near the bodies which suggested the victims were intoxicated, adding that police found no forced entry into the house.

He said police could not establish the motive for killings as investigation was at early stage and the postmortem report would be available after two days.

A police investigator said preliminary investigation suggested that a chemical powder and a hammer were used in the killings. Nazeer was found dead with no bruises on his body. There were, however, blood stains on his left hand, face and shirt. Forensic experts found a hammer, a container of chemicals and tranquilizer lying near Nazeer's body, he added.

He said police had collected 10 samples of blood stains, chemical and finger-prints on hammer for DNA matching, adding samples from Nazeer’s stomach and chemical powder found on his socks were also sent for chemical examination.

The investigator added Nazeer, who was a chemical engineer and unmarried, was a cancer patient, adding police were suspecting the involvement of one of the family members into killings.

A large number of people, including women and children, were seen at the street in a shock where relatives of the murdered people were wailing the deaths.“Oh, my Lord what has happened to them?” cried an elderly outside the house. “Which heartless people have separated me from my children?”

A young man who is a front door neighbour of the family said the deceased brothers had been living in the house for quite sometime and their women would hardly interact with neighbour women.

He said the men were seen leaving their house for work in the morning and would return at night. “By all means, their routine activities were seen normal till Monday evening,” he said.

He said he had only met 10-year-old Afaq for a few times and found some guests in the house on Monday morning.

Quoting brothers-in-law of the three brothers, a police official said Nazeer, who was also a patient of depression and went through a prolonged treatment, had severe attitude problem and was sidelined by the family.

Police shifted the bodies to morgue for autopsies and began investigation. On the complaint of advocate Shahid Iqbal, Johar Town police registered a case with murder and terror sections into the killings. The Lahore Bar Association announced partial strike after 11am on Wednesday to mourn the killings.