London: The British couple and their daughter killed in a bloody family feud in Pakistan were gunned down in an apparent "honour killing" after two armed security guards hired to protect them fled the scene.

The hired hands shot dead one assailant, but ran off when three more appeared.

Furniture manufacturer Mohammad Yousuf, 51, died with wife Pervaiz, 49, and daughter Tanya, 22, in a hail of bullets from the three gunmen in the Gujrat region of north-east Pakistan.

Yousuf, from Nelson, Lancashire, had hired the two guards before visiting a graveyard in Murirya with his wife and daughter.

Last year he was warned never to set foot in the village, which is home to the family of his son Kamar's estranged wife Nabeela.

Feud

When Kamar and Nabeela, who lived in Nelson and have two children, split up last year, it triggered the feud which led to her brothers warning Yousuf he faced "grave consequences" if he ever returned to their home village.

Yousuf defied the warning after returning to Pakistan with his wife and daughter for the wedding of another of his sons in a village 24 kilometres away.

He later visited a graveyard in Murirya with his wife and daughter — and is said to have phoned Nabeela's family from the cemetery, which is directly in front of their house.

Yousuf is claimed to have told one of Nabeela's brothers, Khursheed, over the phone: "We are here in the village and there is nothing you can do against us."

Hired guards

Khursheed ran out of the house with a pistol but was killed by the two hired guards. A senior Gujrat police official said: "Khursheed's two brothers Naveed and Shahzad then ran out of the house with a guard. The two hired guards ran away and Yousuf and his wife and daughter were defenceless.'

The three died along with a female relative, Nusrat Bibi.

Mother-of-two Tania had been due to take her sons Arien, three, and nine-month-old Harris with her to the cemetery but left them with relatives.

Gujrat police chief Tarek Abbas Qurashi said the guard had been arrested. The police also knew where Naveed and Shahzad were and they would be arrested shortly.