Four young men entered the Baskin Robbins ice-cream parlour at Hazratganj late Wednesday night. When the attendant told them the parlour did not serve Cassata ice-cream, two of them took out their revolvers and shot salesman Raghuraj Maurya dead.

Though they fled the scene, the video recording of a marriage party next to the parlour helped police identify the culprits. The victim's cousin, who is also a salesman at the parlour, identified the culprits from the film in which the duo are seen with their guns.

Principal Secretary (Home) B K Mittal said the culprits would be arrested tonight or early Saturday morning. He added theGovernment was ``deeply concerned'' over firing in marriages resulting in deaths, and was planning to review its decision to liberally grant firearm licences for self-defence.

Police say Mishra's son Rakesh Kumar shot the attendant dead, and raided the houses of Mishra and Shukla, whose nephew Anil has been identified as the other man with a revolver.

In 1996-97 and 1997-98, the district administration had issued 655 and 1,055 firearm licences respectively. Another 1,823 licences were issued till March this year, under Chief Minister Kalyan Singh's directive to arm civilians, especially traders, for self-defence.

Police say the revolvers used in the salesman's murder were also licensed arms. Sources add that a large number of ministers, legislators and other politicians have applied for firearm licences.

In all, there are 27,000 licensed firearms in the district, of which 18,000 are in civilians' hands. Another 35,000 applications for gun licences are pending clearance.