Lucknow, Nov. 2: When Gopal Tiwari fell in love with the daughter of a rich businessman from a different caste, the couple ran away from their city unlike Rizwanur Rahman and Priyanka Todi. The killers got his mother today.

Savitri Tiwari, 52, had just stepped out of a Kanpur park after her morning walk and was several paces ahead of husband Mohan when a Santro pulled up beside her.

Mohan, 60, saw the car’s doors swing open, heard the sound of shots being fired, and watched a blood-spattered Savitri slump to the ground. By the time the schoolteacher had run across to his wife, she was dead.

The police are looking for the girl’s father Bhim Singh, a Thakur who owns several businesses. The Tiwaris are a lower middle-class Brahmin family.

Gopal, 22, a private firm employee, had eloped with Sangeeta Singh in 2003, prompting Bhim to file an abduction case claiming his daughter was just 15. The case is pending in a court.

The Tiwaris, who claimed Sangeeta was an adult and that Gopal married her in another city, never told Bhim where the young couple was staying.

“Sangeeta is now definitely over 18 even by her family’s count. So, having lost hope of winning the court case, they may have been looking for revenge,” an officer said.

The police said Bhim and his son Sanjay had gone into hiding after the murder.

“It is possible the father of the girl, along with others, plotted to kill Savitri thinking she had encouraged her son to marry Sangeeta,” the senior superintendent of police, Kanpur, Rajiv Sabbarwal, said. “An investigation is on and the truth will come out.”

The police have registered a first information report against four persons, including Bhim and Sanjay, but have not made any arrests. Officers said that besides the caste difference, the gulf in the two families’ economic status may have been behind the killing.

Savitri and Mohan had begun their morning walk around 5.30am in a park at Kakadeo on the outskirts of Kanpur city. They stepped out around 7am when she was shot.

“She collapsed, bleeding profusely, and died there. The husband came rushing forward but the assailants sped away,” Sabbarwal said. Mohan has told the police there were four men in the car.

“Gopal and Sangeeta began their relationship in the year 2000,” Satish Yadav, a police officer in Kanpur, said. “Three years later, they fled Kanpur fearing for their lives and settled down in another city.”

He wouldn’t reveal the name of the city.