Life sentence for college teacher who plotted sensational murder in Odisha

The Hindu

5 days ago

A local court in Odisha on Wednesday (May 28, 2025) sentenced Punjilal Meher, a college teacher, to rigorous life imprisonment for sending a parcel bomb to the home of a woman colleague who had been promoted ahead of him. The bomb, camouflaged as a wedding gift, exploded and killed two persons, including her newlywed son at Patnagarh in Balangir district on February 23, 2018.
The murder, infamously known as the Patnagarh parcel bomb case, shook the entire State and later went on to become plot of movies in multiple languages. What stunned everyone was the sheer incomprehensibility of the motive — a college teacher orchestrating a brutal murder simply because his woman colleague was appointed principal of a college he believed should have been his.
Additional District Judge, Patnagarh, Sonali Patnaik found him guilty under Sections 302, 307 and 201 of the IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1908. After seven years of trial, the convict was sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 302 of the IPC and Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1908. He was also handed imprisonment of 10 years each separately and seven years on different counts. Total penalty imposed on him was ₹1.40 lakh. As many as 62 witnesses were examined, 100 numbers of documentary evidence and 51 material objects were submitted in the court.
The convict Meher, an English teacher, was in-charge principal of Jyoti Vikash College since 2009 and he felt threatened after senior lecturer Sanjukta Sahu became principal in 2014. Despite her seniority, he refused to step down, showed no respect, issued threats, and began creating controversies out of anger and jealousness. He began to hatch a plan to cause unimaginable pain to Ms. Sahu.
Ms. Sahu's only son, Soumya Sekhar Sahu, was working as an engineer at a Japanese electronics firm in Bengaluru. His wedding was solemnised on February 18, 2018, followed by a reception on February 20. As the family basked in the joy of the celebrations, a parcel arrived at their newly built home on February 23, 2018 — sent by Meher.
Believing it to be a wedding gift, Soumya opened the package out of curiosity. It exploded instantly. Soumya and his grandmother were killed in the blast, while his five-day-old wife Rima sustained grievous burn injuries.
Since there were no eyewitnesses to the tragic incident and no clues about who had sent the parcel, the Balangir district police investigation hit a dead end. However, when the Crime Branch of the Odisha Police took over, the case began to take a new direction.
'It was a blind case. We began the investigation based solely on circumstantial evidence — which, at the time, was virtually non-existent. The turning point came when a cryptic letter was sent to the Balangir Superintendent of Police, seemingly intended to mislead the investigation. But the letter, written in polished English, pointed us toward Meher,' said senior IPS officer Arun Bothra, who was leading the probe.
'Later, we collected scientific evidence and corroborated it through forensic analysis. During questioning, Meher himself admitted he had never imagined he would be caught. He had executed the murder plot with every possible precaution,' Mr. Bothra added.
The convict had learned to make bombs by watching YouTube videos and began collecting explosives from firecrackers purchased during Deepavali in 2017. Chitta Ranjan Kanungo, public prosecutor, said it was an extremely challenging trial, and the Crime Branch of the State Police had painstakingly gathered evidence that withstood judicial scrutiny. The parents of the deceased expressed satisfaction that the convict had been sentenced to life imprisonment.