At least six persons were shot dead and two others were seriously injured in Bihar’s Nalanda district on Wednesday allegedly over a land dispute.

Nalanda also happens to be the native district of chief minister Nitish Kumar and the incident reflects poorly on the continuously deteriorating law and order situation in the state.

The massacre happened at Lodipur village under Chhabilapur police station in the historic Rajgir area following a clash between two groups of people affiliated to Parshuram Yadav and Nitish Yadav.

Parshuram and Nitish are distant relatives and had a running feud between them over a piece of land.

“So far six persons have been found to have been killed while two others are injured in the incident. We are conducting raids to arrest the culprits. All the deceased belong to one group of people,” Rajgir SDPO Somnath Prasad told The Telegraph.

Senior officials were camping in the area where the killings occurred in broad daylight somewhere between 10am and 12pm. The bodies were being sent to the government hospital for post-mortem.

Police officials said that Parshuram and a few members of his family were tilling a piece of land when Nitish arrived with dozens of armed persons and started firing indiscriminately at them.

Panic prevailed in the village and all adult men residing there fled out of fear. The attackers also escaped.

The chief minister has constantly expressed worry that the majority of violence in Bihar occurred over land disputes.