Sheikh Wazir Ali, son Rahman,his wife Rahima

Pandua, Feb. 3: A quack who opened the door late last night to someone calling him for a snakebite cure, his wife and son were stabbed and beaten to death in Hooghly’s Pandua.

Sheikh Wazir Ali, 56, and Rahima Bibi, 40, were sleeping when three or four people came around midnight and said they had brought a man who needed immediate treatment.

As Wazir opened the door, they started beating him up. Then they stabbed him.

When Rahima realised that her husband had been attacked, she bolted her door. The goons broke it open and pounced on her.

Attracted by his parents’ shouts for help, Sheikh Rahman, 18, rushed out of another room. He was dragged out of the house and stabbed.

Wazir’s two younger sons — Sahidul, 10, and Sariful, 8 — watched the turn of events from under a blanket.

“We were so scared that we remained under the blanket till morning. After daylight broke, Sahidul went to the neighbours and told them what had happened,” said Sariful.

Wazir’s house is on the edge of Daulatpur village — about 75km from Calcutta — and the nearest hut is at least 100m away.

Sariful said the miscreants beat up and stabbed his parents and brother for over half an hour.

The officer in charge of Pandua, Arup Bhowmick, said the neighbours called the force in the morning.

The police were not sure about the motive behind the murder, though preliminary inquiries “indicated a family feud”.

Rahima’s sister lodged an FIR against her son-in-law. He had filed a divorce suit earlier.

The police officer said Wazir had another wife, who stayed in Murshidabad. Rahman was the eldest son from his first wife.

“A mason, Rahman had been brought here a few days ago because some construction work had to be carried out in the house,” Bhowmick said.