A scribe and his brother were shot dead over a petty dispute in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur town, about 500 kilometre from here, on Sunday.

According to police source here, the duo was sprayed with bullets by armed assailants, who had barged into their residence at Madhav Nagar locality in the town.

Ashish Kumar Dhiman, who was a reporter with a leading Hindi daily in the town and his brother Ashutosh Dhiman, were rushed to the hospital but were declared brought dead by the doctors.

Police said that Ashish and Ashutosh had an altercation with their neighbours, identified as Mahipal Saini and his son Gaurav Saini, who operated a dairy in front of the victims' house, in the morning over disposal of 'dung'.

The matter was settled after the elders of the locality intervened, sources said. Mahipal and Gaurav, however, barged into the Dhimans' house a little later and opened indiscriminate fire killing the brothers on the spot.

An irate mob later tried to torch the house of the perpetrators, police said adding that security personnel in strength had been deployed in the locality. The situation was stated to be tense.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs. five lakh each to the deceased and directed the police to nab the culprits, who were absconding.

Samajawadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP government of failing on the law and order front. "UP has turned in to hatya pradesh (murder state) under the BJP rule," he said.