Four men are being questioned over the murder of two brothers who were pulled from their van and stabbed to death on a south London street

Sam Jones:

Mohammad Ali, who was 23, and Hayder Ali, 24, were sitting in a white Mercedes van at the junction of Fircroft Road and Tooting High Street just after midnight when they were approached by a gang of about 15 Asian men.

Police believe an argument broke out and the gang smashed the van's windows and dragged out the brothers, who were then stabbed to death. A third man, who is thought to have been in the driver's seat during the attack, was unharmed.
Mohammad, from Battersea, and Hayder, from Southfields, were were pronounced dead at St George's hospital, Tooting.

One witness described the attack as "total mayhem". He said: "I was walking along with a friend. We heard shouting and screaming from all angles as a white Transit van stopped in the road. Then a group of at least 10 men, all young Asians, charged towards it, some carrying knives, and it looked like they all had baseball bats. They started hitting the van with bats, smacking at the windows, at the lights, and along its side. It looked very much like some gang dispute. Then the white van ... drove off, then it was complete mayhem. People started flooding out of restaurants, shops and curry houses. There were probably about 50 of them. They were all ... going berserk. At that point we got really scared, so we got out as quickly as we could."

Police sealed off the area around the scene and removed weapons, including knives, sticks and metal poles.

A postmortem examination showed the brothers died from stab wounds.

Seven men were arrested in connection with the murders over the weekend, and three were released on bail.

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