Bolpur/Burdwan, Jan. 29: Murder and not robbery was the motive of the gang that broke into retired Visva-Bharati professor Sumangal Rana’s house last night, police said today.

The gang hacked to death his son Manu Rana, 28, and severely injured the former teacher of Bengali literature.

Sumangal, 61, is in the in- tensive care unit of a private hospital in Burdwan town in critical condition.

“He has been given over a dozen stitches across his face and three units of blood. He is on ventilator and his condition is critical,” said A.P. Chowdhury, one of the doctors attending to him.

Birbhum superintendent of police Rabindranath Mukherjee said: “Preliminary investigations have revealed that the gang had planned a murder. But we don’t want to reveal the target.”

Another officer said they suspect Manu, who ran the family’s jewellery store on the ground floor of the two-storey house, was the target but the motive was yet to be established. Nothing in the jewellery store had been touched, prompting the police to suspect the murder motive.

A man, whose identity the police did not reveal, has been detained for interrogation.

Around 9.30pm yesterday, six youths came in a green Maruti Omni to Sumangal’s house at Bandhgora, on the outskirts of Bolpur town.

A widower, the retired teacher lived there with his youngest son Manu.

Sumangal’s eldest son Chandan owns an STD booth in Bolpur while his second son Anjan owns a jewellery store in the town.

Chandan said the gang broke open the locks on the rolling shutter in front of the family store. “Alerted by the sound of the locks being broken, my father came down the stairs and out of the house. He was hit with a dagger. Manu rushed down the stairs to intervene and was hacked to death,” said Chandan.

Attracted by Sumangal and Manu’s screams for help, a group of local youths chatting at a distance gave the gang a chase.

They managed to nab one while the others fled in the van. The man they caught was beaten to death. He is yet to be identified.

Sumangal, a Visva-Bharati alumnus, had joined the university as a teacher in 1975. He went on to become a professor and head of the department of Bengali.

“He was a very good teacher,” said Kishor Bhattacharya, the secretary of the Visva-Bharati teachers’ forum.