Odia actor Hara Rath to star in a movie based on parcel bomb case

It took Odisha police two months to crack one of the biggest whodunnits of recent times when they laid their hands on the mastermind of Patnagarh parcel bomb blast case that killed a newly-wed groom and his grant aunt. Now a Odia film producer, Sridhar Martha, is planning to make a film in the next two months on the notorious parcel bomb case that kept everyone hooked about the identity of the accused.

Four days ago, Odisha police claimed that Punjilal Meher, a conniving English lecturer in Patnagarh town of western Odisha district of Bolangir, planned the parcel bomb blast over a professional rivalry with a woman principal of the college where he taught. Meher, 46, scoured Internet to make a bomb over 7-8 months before he sent the packet of explosives in a ‘lone-wolf operation’.

Not wasting any opportunity to make a quick buck out of it, film producer Sridhar now wants to make a film on the incident. Titled ‘Bullet Raja’(the movie title is based on Meher’s love for Bullet motorcycle), the movie aims to mix fact with fiction for the Odia film audience by June this year.

“People would of course want to watch the movie as the subject itself is so interesting,” said Martha, after he met Odisha DGP RP Sharma.” An English lecturer spent hours to make a bomb that could not just kill his professional rival, but wipe her entire family off the face of earth would touch a chord in hearts of viewers. The plot is too surreal”.

On February 23 afternoon, five days after their marriage, Soumya Sekhar Sahu, a 26-year-old software engineer, and his 85-year-old grand aunt Jemamani Sahu were killed and his 22-year-old wife Reema injured when he was opening a parcel that arrived at their home in Patnagarh town of Bolangir.

Meher, who taught English at Jyoti Vikas college in Bhainsa area of Patnagarh town in Bolangir district for last several years, was sore over the software engineer’s mother Sanjukta Sahu getting the job of principal in May last year. Before Sahu took over, Meher was the principal and reportedly swore revenge when unseated.

Police officials who interrogated Meher described him as an intelligent mind who took every possible step to hide his footprints. The lecturer apparently watched Hindi movie Drishyam starring Ajay Devgn, a crime thriller released in 2015, that shows how a cable operator managed to outwit cops in successfully hiding his crime of burying the son of a senior crop whom his family killed accidentally.

Martha said unlike the current Odia films that are accused of carbon copies of Telugu movies, the parcel bomb blast story would be ‘original’ and yet contain all the masala ingredients that are necessary to make the movie a ‘hit’.

For the lead role of lecturer, the producer has decided to cast Hara Rath, whose striking resemblence to UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath in the movie ‘Jogi’ is talk of the town. Actor Manoj Mishra would play the role of CID inspector general Arun Bothra, who cracked the case.

Martha said his movie would have a message. “Be how clever you may be, truth always wins.”