Indian teacher gets a lifelong prison sentence for deadly ‘wedding bomb’ murders

A former university start in the East Indian state Odisha has been sentenced to life imprisonment in prison for sending a package bomb that killed a newlywed man and his great aunt in 2018.

A court found Punjilal Meher, 56, guilty of murder, attempted murder and use of explosives in what became known as the “wedding bomb” case that surprised India.

The bomb, disguised as a wedding gift, was delivered to the house of Soumya Sekhar Sahu, a 26-year-old software engineer, just a few days after his wedding.

When the couple opened the package, it exploded – Sahu and his great aunt killed and his wife, Reema, who opened the package, opened seriously injured.

While the prosecutor’s argument acknowledged that it was a “horrible” crime, the court refused to classify it as a “rarest of the rare” cause that deserved the death penalty.

The BBC dealt with the incident in a detailed two -part research series.

The explosion of February 2018 took place in Patnagarh, a quiet city in the Bolangir district in Odisha.

The victims were only married for five days and were preparing lunch when a package arrived at their house. It was addressed to Soumya and seemed to be a wedding gift, reportedly sent from Raipur in the state of Chattisgarh, more than 230 km (142 miles) removed.

While Soumya pulled a thread on the package to open it, a powerful explosion tore through the kitchen and killed him and his 85-year-old old aunt Jemamani Sahu. Reema, then 22, survived with serious burns, a pierced eardrum and trauma.

After a long -term investigation, the police arrested Meher, then 49, a teacher and former director of a local university where the mother of Soumya worked.

Researchers then told me that Meher had a resentment about professional rivalry and carefully planned the attack. He used a false name and address to e -mail the bomb from Raipur, a courier service without CCTV or packing scanning.

The bomb traveled by bus more than 650 km (40 miles) and went through several hands before it was delivered. Researchers said it was a rough but fatal device wrapped in Jute thread, rigged to explode at opening.

The package with the explosive bore a fake name – SK Sharma from Raipur. Weeks passed without clear suspects. Researchers searched thousands of telephone records and interviewed more than 100 people, including a man who had made a threatening call after the engagement of Reema – but nothing remained.

Subsequently, an anonymous letter reached the local police chief in April.

It claimed that the bomb was sent under the name “SK Sinha”, not Sharma and cryptically mentioned motives of “betrayal” and money.

The letter claimed that three men “had undertaken the project” and now “beyond the police reach”. It called the “betrayal” of the groom and money – due to a contemptuous dispute or property conflict – as motives. It also asked the police to stop harassing the harmless.

The letter went the investigation.

Arun Bothra, a police officer who then led the crime branch of Odisha, noted that the handwriting had been incorrectly read on the reception of the package: it was more like “Sinha” than “Sharma”.

It is crucial that the letter writer seemed to know this – something that only the sender could have known.

The police now believed that the suspect had sent the letter himself.

“It was clear that the sender knew more about the crime than we. By writing that it was sent by a messenger, he wanted to tell us that the crime was not the work of a local man. He wanted to tell us that the plot was executed by three people. He wanted to be taken seriously, so he wanted to blow his fake coverage by a mistake,” Mr. Mr. Mr. Cothra in 2018.

The mother of the victim, a teacher from a university, recognized the writing style and the phraseology of the letter as that of a colleague, Meher, a former director she had replaced.

The police had previously rejected Meher’s rivalry as routine academic politics. Now he became the main suspect.

Under interrogation, Meher initially offered an unbelievable story about being forced to deliver the letter of threat.

The police claim that he later confessed: he had accumulated fireworks, built gunpowder during Diwali, built the bomb and sent it from Raipur with the help of a courier.

He reportedly left his phone at home to make an alibi and avoided CCTV by not buying a train ticket. Meher even attended both the wedding and the victim’s funeral.

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