Sisters shoot each other’s husbands

But within hours of their arrival, both men were dead.

It started out as a row over money, which got worse as both husbands got drunk, said police. According to the police, it was Farida who pulled out Saheed’s .32 calibre revolver and fired three shots at Feroz.

As Feroz fell, Gazala snatched the revolver from her sister’s hand and fired at Saheed. She missed her target, and Saheed escaped out of the flat. Gazala chased after him and shot him dead on the verandah.

Police have arrested both the sisters for the double murder.

Saheed’s neighbour Vanita Hans (38), who lived in the same apartment, said she was about to go to bed last night when she heard shouts followed by gunshots. She shouted out of the window to Saheed’s children. ‘‘They told me their father was testing his revolver.’’ Minutes later, the children came knocking on her door, pleading for help to save their father.

Vanita opened the front door of her flat to confront a scene which seemed out of a movie: ‘‘I saw Saheed running outside, his chest and head bleeding. His sister-in-law was following him with a gun in her hand.’’ She watched as Gazala followed Saheed outside the building. ‘‘She was firing indiscriminately in the building premises and threatened everyone who tried to intervene.’’ Vanita tried knocking on her neighbours’ door for help, but no one answered. When she told Gazala to stop and attend to her husband, she said: ‘‘Saheed has already killed my husband’’, before she shot Saheed in the chest.

Both Gazala and Farida were produced amid tight security before the Andheri Metropolitan Court today and remanded to police custody till August 25.

The sisters’ family said the two were innocent and that the husbands killed each other. But DCP (Zone 7) Amitabh Gupta said, ‘‘Let the family say anything, we have eyewitnesses on the staircase. The motive is still not clear and we are investigating the matter.’’