PATNAGARH, India — A court in Odisha on May 28, 2025 sentenced former college principal Punjilal Meher to life in prison for sending a parcel bomb that killed a newlywed man and his great-aunt in a case that had haunted India for years.
The explosion happened in February 2018 in the quiet town of Patnagarh in Bolangir district, after a package disguised as a wedding gift arrived at the home of software engineer Soumya Sekhar Sahu. Sahu and his wife Reema had been married only five days and were preparing lunch when the parcel came. As Sahu pulled a thread to open it, the bomb detonated in the kitchen and killed him and his 85-year-old great-aunt, Jemamani Sahu. Reema, who opened the package, survived with serious burns, a punctured eardrum and trauma.
A court found Meher guilty of murder, attempted murder and use of explosives. Prosecutors argued the attack was heinous, but the court declined to classify it as one of the rarest of rare cases that would justify a death sentence. That decision leaves the punishment severe but stops short of capital punishment, reflecting the court’s view of the crime while staying within its sentencing framework.
The investigation that followed the blast was long and painstaking. Police arrested Meher after an anonymous letter reached the local police chief. The letter referred to the package under a slightly different fake surname, prompting investigators to revisit the handwriting on the parcel receipt. Soumya’s mother later recognized the writing style and phraseology as belonging to Meher, a colleague and former principal at the college where she worked. That recognition helped turn an academic rivalry into the central theory of the case.
Investigators said Meher had used a false name and address in Raipur, in neighboring Chhattisgarh, and had sent the bomb through a courier service without CCTV or parcel scanning. According to police, the device traveled more than 650 kilometers by bus before reaching Patnagarh. They also said Meher had hoarded firecrackers during Diwali, extracted gunpowder and built the bomb himself. Police further alleged he left his phone at home to create an alibi and avoided buying a train ticket so he would not appear on surveillance.
The court’s decision closes one legal chapter but not the memory of what happened in that kitchen. A wedding gift became a murder weapon, a family celebration turned into a death scene and a local dispute escalated into a crime that took years to unravel. The investigation described in the evidence packet depended on a stray letter, handwriting analysis and careful reconstruction of the parcel’s path. In the end, that painstaking work produced a life sentence for a man whom police believe plotted the attack from resentment and concealment rather than impulse.
The case still stands out because of how ordinary it looked at the start. A wedding parcel was expected to bring goodwill, not explosive force. That mismatch between appearance and reality made the attack especially cruel and made the legal outcome feel like a belated answer to a long public mystery.
