In what appears to be part of a gang war, a BJP leader, Anil Rai, and three others were on Tuesday morning gunned down by unidentified motor-cycle borne assailants in broad day light at a busy junction in Varanasi.

Rai, along with the others, had returned from Delhi by the Shiv Ganga Express, which reached Varanasi about an hour late around 0800 IST. It is believed that four to five youths, on two motorcycles, were following Rai from the railway station and opened fire with AK-47s as soon as his car reached Maldahia crossing.

Others killed along with Rai were his police security guard Chandrama Singh, private body guard Munna Rai and an engineer of the UP Construction Corporation Shailendra Singh, Inspector General of Police Vijay Singh said.

The bodies have been sent for postmortem. Two persons, Umesh Rai and Mohammed Shakeel, were grievously injured in the attack.

The police claimed that the victims too had two rifles and a carbine but were taken by surprise by the sudden attack.

Singh said the assailants emptied around 50 rounds from the rifles and a 9 mm pistol. Three of the assailants have been identified, police said without revealing their identity.

They claimed that the killings were part of a gang war that has already claimed 18 lives in the last six years.

Today's killing was similar to a 1995 incident in which Rai's brother Sunil and three others were gunned down near Naria under the Lanka police station limits.

Incidentally, Shakeel was an eye-witness to the Naria incident too.

A state of high alert has been sounded in the city and all incoming and outgoing vehicles were being checked. A local market in Dhoopchandi area, to which Rai belonged, was closed as a precautionary measure.

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