Krakow gunman's parents and sister found dead at his home

Krakow — The parents and sister of the man suspected of killing six people in Krakow's Main Market Square have been found dead at his home, Polish police said on Sunday, as prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation into the deadliest attack in the city in living memory.

Regional police said the three bodies — a 53-year-old man and two women aged 52 and 21 — were discovered at the suspect's flat in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, around 150 kilometres northeast of Krakow, with injuries preliminarily assessed as gunshot wounds. Seven firearms were seized from the flat, police added, The Hindu reported.

Daniel Prokopowicz, a spokesman for the National Prosecutor's Office, said it was "highly likely" the killings in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski and Krakow were carried out by the same person, though investigations were continuing, according to Al Jazeera.

The 24-year-old Polish suspect, named in Polish media as Michal O., opened fire at random on Saturday in the historic centre of the country's second city, killing six and wounding 15. A British national was among the dead, and the wounded included nationals from Austria, Britain, Germany, Portugal and Russia, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman said. Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the attack an act of "terrorism", and Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said the attacker was influenced by far-right and ultranationalist ideologies. Wide World News has reported on Saturday's rampage in the square.

The gunman was wounded in a shootout with two police officers, one of whom — named by police as Jakub Kulik — managed to hit him despite his own injuries. The suspect remains in critical condition in hospital. According to investigators quoted in Polish media, he had no criminal record, held a valid gun licence and belonged to a shooting club along with his father, France 24 reported.

Poland began two days of national mourning on Sunday. Candles and flowers covered the sealed-off square, flags flew at half-mast, and the hourly trumpet call from St Mary's church was suspended for 12 hours for the first time since 1939, the Polish Press Agency reported.

What comes next is forensic and political. Prosecutors must establish the sequence of the two crime scenes and whether anyone else knew of the arsenal — and with the suspect in critical condition, his interrogation, if it ever happens, will shape the terrorism case Tusk has pledged to pursue.