Allegedly furious over not being invited to an 'iftar party' (when the Muslims breaking fast in the evening during Ramzan), a man shot three children of the host's family in Uttar Pradesh's Faisalabad locality in Bulandshahr district, about 450 kilometres from Lucknow, on Friday.
According to the police sources, the bodies of the children, aged between 9 and 12, were recovered from a water tank near Dhaturi village in the district on Saturday morning.
The head of the family, identified as Mohammed Hafiz, did not send the invite to Salman, his maternal cousin, a resident of Jalilpar village in the district.
Seething with anger, Salman allegedly kidnapped three children of the Hafiz family on Friday evening and took them to a deserted spot, where he shot them dead.
Sources said that Hafiz had approached the cops at the Kotwali police station in the evening and informed them about the missing children but they did not take any action.
Taking a serious view of the matter, two senior police officials, including the in-charge of the police station, were suspended, sources said.
A case was registered and a hunt was launched to nab Salman, who was absconding, the police said.