Odisha wedding bomb murder: Crime Branch takes Punjilal on six-day remand

PATNAGARH: The Crime Branch officials on Thursday took Punjilal Meher, the mastermind in Patnagarh parcel bomb blast in which newly-wed techie Soumya Sekhar and his grandmother Jemamani were killed, on six-day remand. Though the CB officials had prayed for 14-day judicial custody, the SDJM court allowed remand of six days.

The Crime Branch sleuths reached Patnagarh Sub-Jail at about 10 am and took custody of Punjilal beforeheading to the office of the Sub-Divisional Police Office. Later, they took him to Sub-Divisional Hospital here formedical check-up after which they took him to Crime Branch headquarters.A crowd was seen in front of the Sub-Jail and the Sub-Divisional Hospital to catch a glimpse of Punjilal even as he was taken around withhis face covered.

Despite tight security arrangement on Patnagarh court premises on Wednesday evening, the CrimeBranch and the police had a tough time while producing him in the court as people jostled to have a glimpse ofhim. The CB sleuths even had heated argument with the locals when the sleuths ried to chase them away. The locals raised slogan demanding that Punjilal should be hanged.

Punjilal's wife Soudamini, however, feels that her husband hasbeen made a scapegoat and demanded a CBI probe into the incident.The CB will try to recover data and files wiped out by Punjilal fromhis laptop and mobile phone. They may take him back to Raipur and confront him with the auto-rickshaw driver with whom he went to the courier service to deliver the 'killer' parcel. The CB is trying to piece together the entire sequence of events and gather all evidences to make it a water-tight case.