Lecturer breaks down, confesses his crime

BALANGIR/PATNAGARH: Punjilal Meher, English lecturer of Jyoti Vikash Junior College at Bhainsa, who was arrested by Crime Branch on Tuesday for masterminding the sensational parcel bomb explosion in Patnagarh on February 23, was planning the murderous act for seven months.

Four days after blessing software engineer Soumya Sekhar Sahoo and his wife Reema at their wedding at Patnagarh, he gave shape to his plan in which the techie and his grandmother Jemamani Sahoo were killed.
Punjilal who has been charged under Sections 302 and 307, besides Explosive Offences Act, was produced before the court of SDJM, Patnagarh on Wednesday. He has been taken on remand by the Crime Branch. The CB has sought his 14-day remand to seal investigation.

Briefing mediapersons, IG, Crime Branch, Arun Bothra said the agency has completed the investigation but gathering more evidence to make it a water-tight case and ensure justice for Reema, Soumya’s widow.
Punjilal broke down during a psychological test and confessed to his crime, said Bothra, who led the investigation.

Narrating the sequence of events, the IG said, the crime was meticulously planned and Punjilal was working on it for the last seven months. While it is still a mystery how Punjilal procured the technique to make the bomb, deletion of files, search history and location on his laptop makes it amply clear that he could have downloaded it from YouTube.

Bothra said, Punjilal had procured fire-crackers during Diwali from Balangir and also collected gun-powder.

Later, he kept it in a box and by breaking bulbs, created a circuit which ignited spark when the box was opened triggering the explosion of gunpowder. The English teacher, however, had not used any splinters or nails in the bomb, which is usually used to intensify the extent of damage. Despite making all possible efforts to wipe out evidence, luck ran out for Punjilal after he sent an anonymous letter to the Balangir SP on the incident after he came to know that his name was making the rounds as a suspect in the case. This helped police to nail him down.

The IG lauded the efforts of Balangir SP Siva Subramani and Additional SP, Crime Branch, Anil Das for the ground work they had done in cracking the sensational case. After testing the bomb with small amount of gun-powder, Punjilal attended the college on February 15 and drove to Kantabanji with the bomb which he had prepared with 2 kg of gun- powder. From there, he took a train to Raipur, to avoid suspicion.