After five days of interrogation of parcel bomb blast accused Punjilal Meher here, a team of Crime Branch on Tuesday took him to Balangir to produce him in a local court there on Wednesday.
Sources said the Crime Branch would seek further remand of the accused for another round of interrogation.
Speaking to reporters here, Crime Branch ADG S.K. Upadhaya said the investigating police officers have gathered clinching evidence against Mr. Meher, an English lecturer at a private college, to establish his involvement in the incident where a parcel sent as a wedding gift exploded, killing the groom and his grandmother and injuring the bride.
According to the police, Mr. Meher was nurturing a grudge against a colleague, Sanjukta Sahu, the groom's mother, who had been appointed the college principal, a post Mr. Meher was eyeing.
Self-assembled bomb
The police claim he sent a self-assembled crude bomb in a gift box through a private courier service to Ms. Sanjukta’s house on the occasion of her son’s wedding in February this year. The parcel arrived five days after the wedding.
For nearly two months the police, assisted by a special investigating team of the Crime Branch, failed to crack the case or find any clue about the accused.
It was an anonymous letter sent to the Balangir SP, purposely to mislead the investigators in the case, that nailed Mr. Meher. The police claim that the English lecturer, who single-handedly developed the bomb, went to Raipur to dispatch the parcel.
According to the Crime Branch Mr. Meher has confessed his involvement. in the shocking incident. However, reports reaching here from Balangir suggests Mr. Meher’s wife has claimed ignorance about the whole incident and doubted the police claim about her husband’s role.
