Fear and tension has gripped a Bihar village in north India after nine people were killed Saturday night in a fresh episode of caste violence - the second such massacre in Bihar in four days.

The nine, all belonging to a backward caste, were killed allegedly by an armed gang led by a backward caste gangster in the village under the jurisdiction of the Ariari police station in Sheikhpura district.

According to an eyewitness, the attackers surrounded three houses in the village and opened fire on the families sleeping inside.

Villagers remain shocked and frightened a day after the massacre.

"We have not harmed any one but criminals have killed our kith and kin," Indo-Asian News Service quoted a relative of the family that lost three of its members in the violence as saying.

Many felt the violence was related to the ongoing village council elections.

On Thursday nine people belonging to the agrarian backward castes were killed in a village in Nalanda district.

In the last five years, dozens of people have been killed in Sheikhpura, Nalanda and Nawada districts in Bihar in the war of supremacy among gangsters.

Source: Xinhua