Odisha lecturer was ‘mastermind’ of bomb masked as wedding gift
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha police on Tuesday named an English lecturer as the mastermind of a parcel bomb, wrapped as a wedding gift, which killed a newly-wed software engineer, his great-aunt and maimed the bride two months ago.
State director general of police RP Sharma said Punjilal Meher, lecturer in a private college in western Odisha’s Bolangir district, and several others carried out the crime that devastated the family barely five days after the wedding. 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 great-aunt 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. The state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) took over the probe from local police in March.
“Our investigations led us to Meher, who is a lecturer at Jyoti Vikas College in Bolangir’s Bhainsa town. He was the principal of the college earlier, but Soumya’s mother, Sanjukta Sahu, replaced him in May last year,” said a CID officer investigating the case. “We found that he had repeatedly tried to harass and undermine Sanjukta Sahu. One such harassment, allegedly at his behest, was vulgar slogans being painted on the college wall in her name after she took over as the principal,” added the officer, who did not want to be named.
Meher’s wife Soudamini alleged that the CID was framing him. “He will never commit such a crime. It is a conspiracy against my husband by the CID because they could not catch the culprit,” she said. Santosh Upadhyay, additional director general of CID, said Meher has been detained. “He will be arrested along with a few other people,” Upadhyay added. Meher had attended Soumya and Reema’s wedding reception, and his funeral rituals. The CID believes he did it to avoid suspicion.