Tiruchirappalli, 10 Nov

A youth was chased and brutally hacked to death inside police quarters here on Monday by a five-member gang, allegedly due to professional rivalry, police said.

Five people have been secured in connection with the gruesome murder, and a hunt is on to nab four others, a police official said.

The five assailants, who came on two two-wheelers, rammed into the motorcycle on which the victim, later identified as Thamarai Selvan, 25, of Bheema Nagar, was riding near Marsingpet.

When the gang started attacking him indiscriminately after he fell down, Selvan somehow managed to escape and ran towards the police quarters nearby, the official said.

Noticing the door of a policeman's house open, Selvan entered with the hope of hiding himself from the gang. But the men barged into the house and hacked him to death. The police rushed to the spot after the inmates raised an alarm and managed to nab one of them. Later, four others were held.

"Preliminary enquiry revealed that the deceased, who worked in a real estate firm, had a professional rivalry with the men. This could have been a cause for the murder. But we are investigating. A case has been registered," the official said.