A parcel bomb disguised as a wedding gift shattered a family's celebration in India in 2018. Now, a life sentence has been handed to the perpetrator: a former college lecturer driven by a grudge. The BBC reports Punjilal Meher, 56, was convicted of murder, attempted murder, and using explosives in the so-called "wedding bomb" case. A package that appeared to be a wedding present was sent to the home of software engineer Soumya Sekhar Sahu five days after his wedding. The blast that resulted upon opening it killed the 26-year-old and his 85-year-old great-aunt. Soumya's 22-year-old wife, Reema, survived with severe injuries.
Investigators say Meher, a former lecturer at a local college where the groom's mother had assumed his job, was motivated by a professional grudge. Authorities say Meher's planning was painstaking: He allegedly collected gunpowder from unused Diwali firecrackers to make the bomb, selected a courier service that didn't use security cameras or package scanning, and sent it under a fake name and address to Odisha state from a town nearly 150 miles away. Police say Meher was his own undoing: Despite speaking with 100 people, the investigation had turned up no viable suspects—until an anonymous letter was sent to police saying the sender's name on the package was "SK Sinha," not "SK Sharma," as police had believed.
Police determined the letter writer was correct—and that only the person who mailed the package would know that. "The language, the font size, and the spacing in the letter indicated that it was sent by someone with command over English. It led us to zero in on the accused, who was an English lecturer. When we searched his house, we got some evidence, which was scientifically matched. That was the turning point in the case," an investigator tells the Indian Express. Police claim he later confessed. The BBC notes Meher attended both Soumya's wedding and his funeral. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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