Latest news with #JyotiVikashCollege
Time of India
6 days ago
- Time of India
Punjilal's letter to Balangir SP led to his nailing: Bothra
Bhubaneswar: It was a blind case with no immediate material evidence and eyewitnesses. The crime branch, which took over the investigation, said Punjilal's letter to the Balangir SP to derail the probe, forensic examination of bomb remnants, a glue, and a psychological trap led them to Punjilal. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Arun Bothra, then IG (crime branch) and now ADG (railways and coastal security), who led the investigation into first such case of a gift bomb in Odisha, narrated the details of how they filtered the evidence that came their way and nailed Punjilal. "During the investigation, Punjilal once told me that he never thought we would be able to zoom in on him. Nobody was suspecting Punjilal until I delved into the case in the first week of April 2018. He was extremely cunning (shatir). The letter he sent to the SP, Balangir was a breakthrough. When I scanned through the letter, I thought in Patnagarh no one can write such a neat English letter unless one is learned. I asked the investigating officer about the suspect (then Punjilal was a routine suspect) and came to know that he was an English lecturer," Bothra told the media after Punjilal's conviction. Narrating further, he said Punjilal bought 10 envelopes to send the letter to the SP. The crime branch found the remaining nine envelopes in his home that matched the ones sent to the SP. Second, the forensic examination of dry glue on the used envelope and the glue case in his home matched. "The printer in which it was printed was retrieved, and the laptop used to type the letter was recovered," Bothra recalled. What also immensely helped the crime branch secure Punjilal's conviction is that the sleuths recovered the wrappers of the locally-made bombs that Punjilal used to gather gunpowder to make a high-impact bomb. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now "He used several bombs and extracted the gunpowder. We found the remnants in his backyard," said Bothra. Punjilal hatched a plan to eliminate the entire family of Sanjkuta Sahoo, his colleague at Jyoti Vikash College, Bhainsa at Patnagarh in Balangir district, and on Feb 23, the gift bomb consignment reached Sahoo's home. Young techie Soumya Sekhra and his grandmother died in the explosion of the gift that Punjilal couriered from Raipur. The newly-wed bride, Reema, survived the blast.
The Hindu
6 days ago
- The Hindu
Life sentence for college teacher who plotted sensational murder in Odisha
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.
New Indian Express
6 days ago
- New Indian Express
Parcel bomb sent as wedding gift to avenge college rivalry in Odisha; mastermind Punjilal Meher sentenced to life
BHUBANESWAR: In a major success for Odisha Police, a court in Balangir on Wednesday convicted Punjilal Meher, the mastermind of the sensational Patnagarh parcel bomb case, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The court of the Additional District Judge had recently completed the trial in the case, nearly seven years after the shocking incident that killed software engineer Soumya Sekhar Sahu and his maternal grandmother Jemamani Sahu. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Meher on two counts of murder and for causing grievous injury. The case dates back to 23 February 2018, when a wedding gift was delivered to the residence of 26-year-old software engineer Soumya, just days after his marriage. When opened, the box exploded, killing Soumya and Jemamani. Soumya's wife, Reema Sahu, was critically injured. After the local police failed to make any headway, the Odisha government handed over the investigation to the Crime Branch, led by then-IG and Additional DG-ranked officer Arun Bothra. Following a meticulous investigation and evidence gathering, the Crime Branch traced the case back to Meher, a lecturer at Jyoti Vikash College.
