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Hans India
3 days ago
- Hans India
Punjilal gets lifer in parcel bomb case
Bhubaneswar: Punjilal Meher was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Bolangir district on Wednesday for killing two persons, including a groom, by sending a parcel bomb as a wedding gift. Punjilal, a lecturer at Jyoti Vikas College in Bhainsa, had a professional enmity with the groom's mother at the college where she worked as the principal. Due to this reason, Punjilal hatched the conspiracy to kill her son Soumya and sent the bomb as a wedding gift in 2018, police said. Sonali Pattanaik, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Patnagarh, has convicted the accused Punjilal Meher (56) and sentenced him to life imprisonment, government counsel Chittaranjan Kanungo said. The court convicted him under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 201 (destroy evidence of a crime) of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances Act, he said. The court sentenced life imprisonment under two sections, 10 years of imprisonment under two charges and seven years imprisonment under another charge. Kanungo said that all the sentences would run concurrently. To prove the case, the prosecution examined 62 witnesses, 100 documentary evidences and 51 material objects, in the court. 'Our submission was to treat it as a rarest of rare cases. However, the court did not observe it as a rarest of rare cases because all heinous crime cases cannot be treated like that,' the public prosecutor said. He said the quantum of punishment pronounced by the court is very encouraging. It will give a positive message to the society at large. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1.40 lakh on the convict. He will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, Kanungo informed mediapersons outside the court. Arun Bothra, a senior police officer, who led the Crime Branch investigation into the case in 2018, said, 'When we took over the case, there was no evidence, no eyewitness, nothing to lead the investigation. There was no suspicion on Punjilal Meher.' The Crime Branch got clues from an anonymous letter sent to the Bolangir SP (by Punjilal), Bothra said. 'We collected crucial evidence like the cover of the letter, soft copy of the letter, the printer used to print it, and adhesive used to seal the letter from Punjilal Meher's possession. All were scientifically matched and proved,' Bothra told mediapersons. Later, the accused narrated the entire episode and also demonstrated the bomb-making procedure before the police, he said, adding that Punjilal admitted to having learnt the process of parcel bomb-making from videos on the internet. 'I feel satisfied after the accused was convicted by the court and justice has been served to the victim's family,' Bothra, who is now serving as the ADG of Police, Railways and Coastal Security, said. 'We have suffered an irreparable loss. We were praying for the death sentence. Still, we are satisfied with the judgment of the court,' the deceased groom's father, Rabindra Sahoo, said. Sanjukta Sahoo, the victim's mother, too, expressed satisfaction with the court ruling while comparing Punjilal with a demon. Soumya Sekhar Sahoo, in his mid-twenties, and his 85-year-old grandmother, Jemamani Sahoo, were killed in the blast. His wife, Rimarani, suffered critical injuries when a parcel bomb, disguised as a wedding gift, exploded at their Patnagarh home in Bolangir district on February 23, 2018. The blast had taken place when the groom opened the gift. Following a request by the new bride and her family, the then chief minister Naveen Patnaik had ordered the Crime Branch to probe into the incident. The Crime Branch took over the investigation on March 23, 2018, and arrested Punjilal in April 2018. He is currently lodged in the Patnagarh sub-jail. The Crime Branch had said that revenge was the motive behind the crime.
NDTV
3 days ago
- NDTV
Odisha Man Kills 2 By Sending Parcel Bomb As Wedding Gift, Gets Life Term
Bhubaneswar: A lecturer was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Odisha's Bolangir district on Wednesday for killing two persons, including a groom, by sending a parcel bomb as a wedding gift. Punjilal Meher, a lecturer at Jyoti Vikas College in Bhainsa, had a professional enmity with the groom's mother at the college where she worked as the principal. Due to this reason, Punjilal hatched the conspiracy to kill her son Soumya and sent the bomb as a wedding gift in 2018, the police said. The Patnagarh Additional District Judge (ADJ) court has convicted the accused Punjilal Meher in the case and sentenced him to life imprisonment, government counsel Chittaranjan Kanungo said. The court convicted him under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 201 (destroy evidence of a crime) of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances Act, he said. The court sentenced life imprisonment under two sections, 10 years of imprisonment under two charges and seven years imprisonment under another charge. Kanungo said that all the sentences would run concurrently. "Our submission was to treat it as a rarest of rare cases. However, the court did not observe it as a rarest of rare cases because all heinous crime cases cannot be treated like that," the public prosecutor said. He said the quantum of punishment pronounced by the court is very encouraging. It will give a positive message to the society at large. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1.70 lakh on the convict. He will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, Kanungo informed media persons outside the court. Soumya Sekhar, a man in his mid-twenties, and his 85-year-old grandmother were killed in the blast. His wife, Seema Sahoo, suffered critical injuries when a parcel bomb, disguised as a wedding gift, exploded at their Patnagarh home in Bolangir district on February 23, 2018. The blast had taken place when the groom opened the gift. Following a request by the new bride and her family, the then chief minister Naveen Patnaik had ordered the Crime Branch to probe into the incident. The Crime Branch took over the investigation on March 23, 2018, and arrested Meher in April 2018. He is currently lodged in the Patnagarh sub-jail. The Crime Branch, in its charge sheet, has accused Punjilal Meher an English lecturer at the college where the victim Soumya Sekhar's mother Sanjukta Sahu was the principal. The investigating agency has said that revenge was the motive behind the crime.
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Indian Express
A wedding, a parcel bomb and an English professor's revenge – 7 years later, case that captivated Odisha ends in conviction
A court in Odisha's Bolangir district Wednesday convicted Punjilal Meher, the lone accused in the 2018 Patnagarh parcel bomb case that killed two people, including a 26-year-old newly-wed man. Meher, then a lecturer in a local college, has been sentenced to life imprisonment. The ruling, in what was India's first parcel bomb case, came seven years after Meher allegedly sent a bomb to the victim in the form of a wedding gift. The court of the additional district judge (ADJ) also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Meher, who was present at the time of the ruling. Sanjukta Sahu, the mother of Soumya Sekhar Sahu — a software engineer by profession who had just been married — said she was satisfied with the court ruling, although she added that she could not get back what she lost. Soumya's 85-year-old great aunt, Jenamani, was also killed in the explosion, while his wife, Reema, sustained severe injuries. 'We were hoping for capital punishment in the crime considering its rarest of the rare nature. But the court sentenced life imprisonment. We express our gratitude to the court,' Rabindra Sahu, the victim's father, told the media outside the court. The case On February 23, 2018 — five days into his marriage – Soumya was killed after a parcel he had just received as a gift exploded. According to investigators, the crime was planned and executed meticulously. While the police initially investigated it, the probe was taken over by the Odisha Crime Branch. Over 100 suspects were questioned, with the investigators eventually arresting Meher, a colleague of Soumya's mother Sanjukta. According to police sources, Meher allegedly planned the crime after Sanjukta replaced him as the principal of Jyoti Vikas College in Bhainsa. In its chargesheet, the Crime Branch named Meher as the lone accused and said that the crime was an act of 'revenge'. According to Soumya's family, the accused had attended both the wedding and the funeral of the victim. Meher, an English lecturer, had allegedly begun to collect firecrackers from Diwali the previous year, hoarding gunpowder used in the crackers and using the internet to learn how to assemble bombs, making some test explosives first before he made the final product. The bomb he made was then put in a cardboard box and gift-wrapped. Days before the explosion, Punjilal attended college and returned home to collect the parcel. He took it to Kantabanji, where he boarded a train to Raipur, Chhattisgarh, around 250 km from Patnagarh town. In Raipur, the accused allegedly looked for courier services that were in basements and that had no CCTVs, telling them that the parcel had 'gift articles'. To hide his identity, he put the sender's name down as S K Sharma and also gave an incorrect address. Then, he took an evening train back home, police sources had said. The 'gift' parcel reached Patnagarh on February 20 and was delivered to Soumya's residence three days later. To further mislead investigators, the accused sent an anonymous letter to the then Bolangir Superintendent of Police saying three people were involved in the 'project' – the blast – and that the reason for it was 'his (Soumya's) betrayal' that led to several people losing their lives and money. The letter also asked the police to 'stop harassing innocent people'. It was this letter – allegedly aimed at derailing police investigation – that helped the Crime Branch crack the case. According to investigators, this was 'a special case as there was no evidence at all when the Crime Branch took up the investigation'. 'All evidence was circumstantial and there were no eyewitnesses,' senior IPS officer Arun Bothra, who led the investigation, told reporters. 'We are satisfied that we took it to conviction from a blind case, and justice is served to the family.' While the letter sent to the Bolangir SP was meant to 'deceive' the investigation agency, the accused had left 'many clues in the letter', Bothra said. 'The language, the font size and the spacing in the letter indicated that it was sent by someone with command over English. It led us to zero in on the accused, who was an English lecturer. When we searched his house, we got some evidence, which was scientifically matched. That was the turning point in the case,' Bothra said. The agency's chargesheet in August 2018 included statements of as many as 72 witnesses. Among their list of evidence was the letter and receipt books of the parking lot at Kantabanji railway station. Also seized were mobile phones, a laptop, pen drives, hard disks and CCTV footage of a courier service in Raipur.
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Hindustan Times
Odisha: English lecturer gets life term for 2018 parcel bomb that killed two
Bhubaneswar: An Odisha court on Wednesday sentenced an English lecturer of a private college to life imprisonment for executing a bomb blast that killed a newly-wed software engineer, his grandmothers and severely injured his wife in 2018. Seven years ago the bomb, sent by courier from Chhattisgarh capital Raipur, exploded when Soumya Sekhar Sahu (26) opened the parcel at his family home in Bolangir's Patnagarh town on February 23. The explosion killed him and his grandmother Jemamani Sahu, 85. The newly-wed bride, Reema (22) suffered extensive injuries in the explosion and was admitted to hospital for more than a month. Soumya and Reema had been married for five days. Additional sessions judge of Patnagarh Sonali Patnaik sentenced lecturer Punjilal Meher, who taught at Jyoti Vikas College in western Odisha's Patnagarh town in Bolangir district, to life imprisonment and penalty of ₹50000. The court sentenced Meher under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Explosive Substances Act, terming the crime as 'heinous' and 'premeditated'. Also Read: Parcel bomb that killed 2 in Gujarat was sent by man suspecting wife's fidelity Rabindra Sahu, the father of the victim, said, '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 V.S.S. Medical College and Hospital, Burla.' According to the state CID that took over the case, Meher was aggrieved over the software engineer's mother, Sanjukta Sahu, replacing him as the principal. He was the principal from 2009 till May 2014, when Sanjukta, a history lecturer and became the principal of the college. This rankled Meher and triggered hate and envy in his mind for her. Police said Meher watched bomb-making videos on YouTube, scoured the internet for manuals, and then erased his search history. During Diwali 2017, he purchased a large quantity of firecrackers and began experimenting. Before assembling the fatal bomb, he dismantled the firecrackers and packed their contents into LED lights used for Diwali decorations, triggering smaller explosions as tests. Also Read: Panic over hoax bomb threat at DG women welfare office in Lucknow On the day he travelled to Raipur by train to send the bomb disguised as a wedding gift to the Sahu household, Meher first attended a class and marked his attendance. He didn't even buy a ticket for the journey. In Raipur, he used a cycle rickshaw and a tuk-tuk to visit various courier services, eventually booking the parcel at one of them and declaring its contents as 'gift articles, sweets.' The parcel travelled 650 km by bus, passing through multiple hands before reaching the Sahu household. Police found a copy of the courier agency's receipt from his house in Patnagarh town. He had left his phone at home to create an alibi. Also Read: Explosion in parcel from Amritsar creates panic in Bengal post office, probe on The parcel, sent through a courier in Raipur, was initially attributed to a sender named 'SK Sharma'—a name investigators later confirmed to be fake. According to the CID, during the investigation, an anonymous letter was sent to the Balangir superintendent of police (SP), claiming the parcel was actually sent by 'SK Sinha', not 'SK Sharma'. The letter alleged that three men carried out the blast due to the groom's 'betrayal and a financial dispute,' suggesting motives such as a scorned lover or property issues. It also urged the police to 'remain silent' and avoid harassing innocent people. This letter helped the state CID zero in on Meher. The victim's mother identified Meher as a potential suspect after noticing similarities between the phrasing in the letter and his writing style—particularly his use of the phrase 'completing the project.' Meher reportedly attended both the wedding and Soumya's funeral, to avoid any suspicion.
News18
3 days ago
- News18
A Wedding, A Gift & Then Tragedy: Odisha Parcel Bomber Gets Life Term After 7 Years
Last Updated: Driven by jealousy, Punjilal Meher had meticulously planned the attack after the victim's mother took over his position at an educational institution Seven years after a deadly parcel bomb engineered by a jealous acquaintance killed a newly-wed man and his relative in Odisha, the Additional District Judge in Patnagarh sentenced the convict to life imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on him. The case dates back to February 2018, when the calm of the quiet town of Patnagarh in Odisha was shattered by a horrific crime. Soumya Sekhar Sahu, a 26-year-old bright software engineer, had recently tied the knot and was looking forward to a happy future alongside his new wife, Reema, when fate took a cruel twist. On February 23, a mysterious parcel arrived at Sahu's home. Disguised as a wedding gift, the package, however, held something far more sinister—a bomb. The explosion ripped through the household, instantly claiming the lives of Sahu and his grandmother Jemamani Sahu, leaving Reema gravely injured. The horror sent shockwaves across the region, and the investigation quickly zeroed in on Punjilal Meher, an English lecturer and former principal at Jyoti Vikas College, where Sahu's mother, Sanjukta, had taken over his position. Driven by jealousy, Meher had meticulously planned the attack, turning to the internet to learn how to make bombs. He had even used his mobile phone to track the parcel's journey to Sahu's home. Police also gathered irrefutable evidence: fingerprints on the deadly package and travel records showing Meher's trip to Raipur to send the bomb. According to OdishaTV, items recovered from Meher's possession, including gunpowder, wiring, a partially burned diary, and computer data, were central to the prosecution. A failed assassination plot in the 1960s involved sending a bomb disguised as a package to then-President John F. Kennedy. The device was intercepted before it could cause harm and the plotters were arrested and charged. Between 2010 and 2013, several parcel bombs were sent to political leaders, government offices, and individuals in Pakistan, causing injuries and deaths. These attacks aimed to intimidate political opponents and destabilise the government. Various suspects were arrested, and heightened security measures were implemented for mail screening. WHY PARCEL BOMBS ARE USED What makes parcel bombs 'popular" among attackers are their easy concealment as they can be disguised as ordinary packages or gifts. They allow attackers to target victims without direct confrontation, while creating fear and uncertainty about everyday mail and deliveries. Watch India Pakistan Breaking News on CNN-News18. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from politics to crime and society. Stay informed with the latest India news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! First Published: May 28, 2025, 13:26 IST
