BHUBANESWAR: Senior IPS officer Arun Bothra, who had led the investigation of the sensational Patnagarh parcel bomb case, on Wednesday expressed satisfaction that the court awarded life sentence to mastermind Punjilal Meher.
The officer, now serving as additional DG of Railways and Coastal Security, said though nothing can compensate the loss of Soumya Sekhar Sahu’s family, it was satisfying to see the case end in conviction. He appreciated the officers who were part of the investigation team.
The case has come as a major success for Odisha Police since there were no eyewitnesses of the incident and very little evidence was available to tie it to back to Punjilal.
Known for his investigating knack, Bothra, IG of Crime Branch (CB) back then in 2018, was asked to helm the probe after the local police made no breakthrough and state government handed over the case to the agency. He camped at Patnagarh for days to supervise the probe.
“There was no evidence as the parcel bomb had exploded on the spot. However, an anonymous letter sent to Balangir SP to hoodwink the investors led the CB to the mastermind,” Bothra told mediapersons after a court in Balangir sentenced Punjilal to life imprisonment. The letter sent by Punjilal to mislead the investigators actually brought him under radar and eventually led to his arrest, he said.
“Punjilal was very cunning and had meticulously planned the entire crime. We zeroed in on him after noticing many clues in the anonymous letter sent by him to Balangir SP,” said Bothra.
The writing, font size, design and spacing in the letter was a strong clue that the sender had a very good command over English language. The turning point of the case was when searches were conducted in Punjilal’s house and envelopes similar to the one used to send the letter to the police were found. The CB also seized the adhesive on the envelope, laptop used to draft the letter and the printer. Forensic examination of the adhesive confirmed that it was used in the letter sent to the police.
Meher had used firecrackers to make the parcel bomb and had then dumped the casings in a public dustbin and burnt them. The scrapping of the same dustbin were extracted and sent for forensic examination to confirm it consisted of same explosive materials used in the parcel bomb.
It is the second such challenging case to end in conviction after the sexual assault and murder of Pari, a minor girl of Nayagarh in 2020. Probe in that case too was headed by Bothra.
