Lucknow, Oct 6 (IANS): Three people, all from the same family, were killed in Mainpuri on the night of Friday-Saturday, police said.

Om Prakash (55), his wife Gunjan Devi (44) and their nine-year-old daughter Shalu were found with their throats slit, police said, adding that it appeared, prima facie, to be a case related to old animosity.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Mainpuri Shalabh Mathur told IANS that the incident took place in Lakutpur village under Kishni police station in Mainpuri, about 220 km from the state capital.

Mainpuri is the Lok Sabha constituency of Samajwadi Party national president Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Police said that the murders took place at a time when other members of the family were asleep in another part of the house.

The bodies were discovered Saturday morning, and panic stricken villagers called the police.

The bodies have been sent for autopsy, and security has been deployed at the scene of the crime.

The district police chief said that the family of Om Prakash, the deceased, had long been engaged in a dispute with a family in neighbouring Madanpur village.

Police has formed three teams for expeditious investigation of this case.

This is the second major incident in the area in the last 48 hours.

Just two days prior to this incident, two brothers were shot dead in Saifai, the ancestral village of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, about 200 km from Lucknow.

The murders had taken place just before the chief minister landed in the village for a function, and police were preoccupied with arrangements for the VIP visit.

Law and order has become a major issue in the state, and opposition parties including the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have been slamming the seven-month-old Akhilesh Yadav government.