A 45-year-old man allegedly hacked to death his wife and two children with a sword and then killed himself following a fight over their pet dog in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district on Sunday, police said.

The incident took place in the wee hours of Sunday at the family's house in Badnagar area, located about 50 km from the district headquarters, they said.

Sub-Divisional Officer of Police Mahendra Singh Parmar said as per the investigation, Dilip Pawar started beating his domestic dog at around 1 am.

His wife Ganga (40), their son Yogendra (14) and daughter Neha (17) intervened and asked Pawar to leave the pet alone, he said.

Pawar, in a fit of rage, then allegedly killed his wife and two children with a sword. His other two children ran out of the house for safety, the official said.

After a while, the accused allegedly stabbed himself to death with some sharp-edged weapon in his house, he said.

The official said as per the initial investigation, Pawar was a heavy drinker.

“Right now, we can't say confidently that he was drunk when he killed his wife and two children. The investigation is on,” he said.

The accused had no job since some months. He had a freight vehicle with which he used to make a living, but he sold it some time back, the official said as per the investigation.

"After getting information at around 5 am, we rushed to the spot and sent the bodies for postmortem," Parmar said.

A forensic science laboratory team also reached the spot, police said.

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