College teacher who disguised bomb as wedding gift to target colleague's son gets life sentence
A former college principal in India has been sentenced to life in prison for sending a parcel bomb disguised as a wedding gift in 2018.
Punjilal Meher was sentenced by a court in eastern Odisha state's Bolangir on Wednesday, nearly seven years after his parcel bomb killed 26-year-old Soumya Sekhar Sahu and his 85-year-old great aunt, Jenamani. Sahu's wife Reema, was seriously injured in the explosion.
The couple had been married for just five days when they opened a parcel delivered to their home in Patnagarh town on 23 February 2018, according to The Indian Express. The package had reportedly been sent to the bridegroom 'in the form of a wedding gift'.
Ms Reema, who was 22 at the time, spent over a month in hospital.
Sahu was employed as an engineer with a Japanese electronics company in the southern city of Bengaluru.
The court found Meher, 49 years old at the time of the attack, guilty of murder, attempted murder, and use of explosives in what was dubbed the 'wedding bomb' case in local media.
While the prosecution had described the crime as 'heinous', judge Sonali Patnaik stopped short of deeming it a 'rarest of the rare' case, which would have warranted the death penalty.
Recalling the blast, the victim's father, Rabindra Sahu, was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times: 'The parcel, delivered by Sky King Courier from Raipur, detonated when Soumya pulled a thread, causing extensive damage to the house, including cracked walls and shattered windows. While Jemamani died en route to the hospital, Soumya succumbed to his injuries at VSS Medical College and Hospital, Burla.'
Investigators at the time said that Meher harboured resentment after being replaced as principal by Sanjukta Sahu, the victim's mother, at Jyoti Vikash College where he was the in-charge principal. He had held the post from 2009 until May 2014, when Ms Sahu, a history lecturer at the college, was promoted to the role. Investigators said the demotion deeply unsettled Meher and fuelled feelings of hatred and envy towards her.
The Hindu reported that despite Ms Sahu's seniority, Meher refused to relinquish his position, displayed open disrespect, issued threats, and began stirring controversies driven by anger and jealousy.
Police said Meher learned how to make explosives by watching YouTube videos and reading online manuals, which he later deleted from his browsing history.
During Diwali in 2017, he bought a large quantity of firecrackers and began conducting trials: extracting the gunpowder and packing it into LED lights typically used for Diwali decor, triggering small explosions to test the mechanism.
On the day he travelled to Raipur to post the bomb, disguised as a wedding gift, Meher first attended a class and marked his attendance to create an alibi, police said.
He didn't purchase a train ticket, likely to avoid leaving a digital trail.
Once in Raipur, he used a cycle rickshaw and an auto-rickshaw to visit several courier offices, eventually choosing one with no CCTV or scanning systems. He declared the parcel's contents as 'gift articles, sweets'.
The package then travelled 650km by bus, passing through multiple hands before arriving at the Sahu residence.
Meher, who is believed to have attended both the wedding and the funeral, allegedly used a false name, 'SK Sharma from Raipur', and a fake address to send the parcel bomb.
Police spent several weeks pursuing the case without any significant leads, until April 2018, when the local police chief received an anonymous letter, according to the BBC.
The letter claimed the parcel bomb had been sent under the name 'SK Sinha', not 'Sharma', and cited motives including money and the groom's 'betrayal'.
It also suggested the attack may have stemmed from a scorned lover or a property dispute. The letter further alleged that three men had 'undertaken the project' but were now 'beyond police reach' and accused officers of 'harassing' innocent people.
Police grew suspicious that the anonymous letter was written by the attacker himself. One officer noticed that the name on the parcel, 'Sharma', might have been misread and actually resembled 'Sinha' as mentioned in the letter.
The letter also revealed details that only the perpetrator would know. The victim's mother recognised the writing style and phrases as similar to Meher's, helping police zero in on him.
'The turning point came when a cryptic letter was sent to the Balangir superintendent of police, seemingly intended to mislead the investigation,' said police officer Arun Bothra, who was leading the investigation, according to The Hindu.
'But the letter, written in polished English, pointed us towards Meher.'
Sahu's father told reporters outside the court after the verdict was delivered that they were 'hoping for capital punishment in the crime considering its rarest of the rare nature'.
'But the court sentenced him to life imprisonment,' he added. 'We express our gratitude to the court.'
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