Patna, Aug. 6: A young BJP activist was chased and shot dead early this morning in the heart of the city, the murder, which unfolded over 10 seconds, captured in chilling detail on CCTV.

Avinash Kumar, 30, had dropped his teenage daughter to school and was returning when he was fired at by three men waiting near a temple barely 200 metres from his home in Daldali, an area located at the southeast corner of Gandhi Maidan.

Though the BJP sought to give a political twist to the murder and described the killing as another example of Nitish Kumar's "jungle raj", police sources said old enmity with a neighbour may be the cause.

Two persons - a priest of the temple near which the murder took place and his son - were arrested on the basis of an FIR lodged by Avinash's brother late tonight. Avinash's wife Ranjana had contested the municipal elections against the priest's daughter three years ago and this is what, according to the police sources, triggered the family enmity.

After dropping his daughter to school, Avinash parked his car near the IMA building, around half-a-kilometre away from his house, and started walking. As the young man neared the temple, one of the assailants fired at him but missed.

Avinash, whose right hand had been temporarily incapacitated owing to an accident injury suffered some years ago, started running, with the men giving chase. One of them fired another shot, which hit the BJP activist in the back and he fell. Another assailant then approached the wounded man and fired at him from point-blank range. The bullet hit his head, rendering Avinash motionless.

Two CCTV cameras, installed at the front of the temple, captured the murder - the first shot was fired at precisely 6:34:40 am and Avinash was rendered motionless at 6.34.50 am.

The assailants escaped taking advantage of the lanes and bylanes that criss-cross Daldali.

Avinash lived with wife Ranjana and 13-year-old daughter Sakshi in a single-storied house located on Road Number 2 of Daldali. Sakshi is a student of Christ Church School off Gandhi Maidan, which is about a five-minute drive from their home. He ran a travel and tours agency named after his daughter.

Late this evening, Avinash's brother Sushil Kumar, who runs a pathology lab in Bhagalpur, filed an FIR against six persons - Pannalal Gupta, Darshan alias Guddu, Purohit Lal Gupta, Prakash Lal Gupta, Ravi Gupta and Jyoti Gupta.

All are family members of Pannalal Gupta, the priest of the temple. "It was in fact Pannalal who sounded the alarm after Avinash was shot," a police officer told The Telegraph under cover of anonymity.

The FIR has been lodged at the Kadamkuan police station area under sections 302 (murder) and 120B/34 (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

Police sources said the murder may be fallout of a rivalry that began when Avinash's wife Ranjana contested the municipal polls in 2012. "The daughter of the temple priest too had contested the elections. Though both of them lost, there was bitterness between the two families and once they had a fight too. Also, Avinash has got a lot of land in Paliganj, on the outskirts of Patna. These angles are being probed," the police source said.

Sakshi, a student of Class VII, said they had noticed some men standing near the temple while on way to school. "While we were going to school, I noticed some men standing near the temple and they were staring at us. I told my father about it and he said he would speak to them after dropping me," she said.

Sources said Avinash may have sensed trouble as he parked his car a distance away from his home and chose to walk back through the myriad alleys dotted with shops selling foodgrain and spices.

The murder triggered howls of protest from the BJP. Bankipore MLA Nitin Navin was the first to reach the murder spot, followed by senior leaders such as Sushil Modi, Mangal Pandey and Shahnawaz Hussain. BJP leaders, among them Union minister Ananth Kumar, visited PMCH, where the body was taken for post-mortem, and met Avinash's family members.

"He (Avinash) was the general secretary of the BJP's Patna division. We had some public programmes lined up for today and got a call from him around 6am to confirm a meeting I had. Just some minutes later, I learnt about his murder. This is shocking," Navin said.

"The JDU is giving moral support to the criminals in Bihar. In the regime of Nitish Kumar, the administration has become lazy and criminals are roaming the city without any fear. The incident proves that no one is safe in Bihar. Instead of thinking about the people of the state, Nitish has focused on only one thing: putting big posters and hoarding across the city," BJP state-in-charge Bhupender Yadav said.

"Jungle raj has come back to Bihar. It is shocking that a person is killed just a little distance from the offices of the SSP and the DM," state BJP president Mangal Pandey said, while announcing an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh to Avinash's family.

Angry residents blocked Pirmuhani Road and didn't let the police take Avinash's body for about six hours.

Patna SSP Vikas Vaibhav visited the spot and only around noon could police persuade the people to remove the road blockade.