Following Sunday's savage murder, in which five men hired by Rajvinder's family battered her husband Ravindra, his brother and parents, police arrested Rajvinder's mother Maya Kaur and her aunt Nirmal Kaur. Her father is also in custody. The quintet are yet to be arrested.

Rajvinder's family had bitterly opposed her marrying Ravinder and also frequently threatened the couple ever since they tied the knot. Still, that was no deterrent for the youngsters, who were very much in love.

At the end of 1997 though, they buckled under the stream of threats and separated. While Ravindra continued to reside with his parents at Sector 12 in Navi Panvel, Rajvinder returned to herfamily at Kalamboli. They finally reunited on April 12 this year, which is when the threats from Rajvinder's family resumed.

At around 10.30 pm on Sunday, Rajvinder's mother Maya Kaur and aunt Nirmal Kaur visited her at the Matharu residence and demanded that Rajvinder return the gold jewellery they had gifted her before she had first left home. After she did so, the women asked Rajvinder and her husband to step outside the house, saying her maternal uncle was waiting to meet her.

Before the couple could detect anything amiss, five men armed with a pistol, sword, chopper, knife and an iron rod appeared from nowhere and began to batter Ravinder, his father Dilip, his mother Lakhwinder and his brother, Harvinder. The assailants did not stop till their victims' brains, lungs and gut were scattered all over the floor. The assailants left the premises only after they were sure their victims were cold and dead.

Rajvinder, whose feeble protests were met with stern blows, is recuperating in hospital. After sheregained consciousness, police recorded a statement in which Rajvinder had implicated her mother, aunt and uncle in the incident.

``When all this was happening and the family was pleading for help, none of the neighbours came to their rescue,'' Assistant Commissioner of Police (Panvel Division), Sahebrao Patil, told Express Newsline.

Panvel police have arrested Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur and have charged them with murder, attempt to murder and other counts of the Indian Penal Code. They have also been charged under the Arms Act. Rajvinder's father is also in custody. Police are on the lookout for the assailants. ``We have managed to identify two of the five men who killed the Matharu family,'' Patil says.

The bodies have been sent to the City Municipal Hospital at Panvel for post-mortem examination. Police have also recovered two empty cartridges from the site of the murder which indicates that two rounds were fired from a country-made pistol.