Three persons - two of Madhesi origin on a Pulsar motorcycle and one on foot - shot owner of Bhandari Cereal Store Ramesh Bhandari and his wife Asha, according to police. [break]
Asha was shot in the chest and the side of the abdomen and died on the spot. Ramesh was shot twice in the neck and breathed his last while being taken to Lumbini Zonal Hospital.
An employee at the store said that the assailants wearing ocher clothes with ´Shree Ram´ printed on them entered the store unsuspected.
“Two of them went out the front of the store and one out the back after the shooting and fled on the single motorcycle,” the store employee added. He claimed that the fleeing assailants pointing their pistols at employees who tried to give chase and pelt stones.
Ramesh´s father Bishnu had handed over responsibility for his large cereal business in Butwal to the 34-year-old just a few years ago. The Bhandaris sell food grain to Gulmi, Arghakhanchi, Pokhara and Baglung from Butwal. Family friends claim that daily turnover at the store runs into millions.
The killers also made off with an unspecified amount of money from the store. The Bhandari couple is survived by two children aged eight and five years.
The main market areas of Butwal closed spontaneously after the incident that took place just a couple of hundred meters from the Area Police Post. Irate businessmen have called for the closure of all businesses and industries on Thursday to protest the murders.
Deputy Superintendent of Police at Area Police Office Butwal, Dan Bahadur Karki, said they have intensified their search for the culprits at entry points into Butwal.
“We have started serious investigations and are looking at different aspects of the murders,” said Superintendent of Police Prakash Aryal.
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