Parcel Gift Blast: Crime Branch Takes Punjilal Meher On Five-Day Remand

Bolangir: The Patnagarh Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) on Wednesday allowed the Crime Branch to take Punjilal Meher, mastermind of the sensational parcel gift blast, on a fresh remand for five days.

While the Crime Branch had prayed the court to take Meher on 8-day remand, the latter allowed 5-day remand. The court also asked the Crime Branch to produce Meher at 12.30 pm on May 7 after the end of the remand period.

After the end of his six-day remand, Meher was brought to the Kendu Leaf Inspection Bungalow at Patnagarh by a team Crime Branch police from the state headquarters in Cuttack late on Tuesday night amid tight security.

He was produced in the court of the Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) in the first hour on Wednesday after a medical examination by a team of doctors at the Patnagarh government hospital.

As informed by the Crime Branch, it will take Punjilal to Raipur from Patnagarh after 12.30 pm on Wednesday.

Crime Branch IG, Arun Bothra is also scheduled to visit Raipur on Wednesday and will have a meeting with a three-member Crime Branch team which is currently stationed in Raipur.

Since Punjilal had committed the crime alone, there was neither any associate nor any witness to this incident, it will be challenge for the Crime Branch to gather conclusive evidence to substantiate his complicity in this case.

While Punjilal had earlier informed the Crime Branch that he had hired one auto-rickshaw in Raipur and gone to the DTDC Courier Service and Skyking Courier Service, the mastermind, in course of interrogation later, had said he had first hired two rickshaws and then hired an auto-rickshaw. On the basis of his statement, the Crime Branch will have to look for the two rickshaw pullers and the auto-rickshaw driver.

Reliable sources said the Crime Branch, after taking Punjilal on remand for the second time, will conduct a full rehearsal on when and at what time he had left his house for the Jyoti Bikash Mahavidyalaya at Bhainsa, when he left the college and headed for Kantabanjhi and was there any CCTV in the area where he had parked his bike near the railway station before boarding the train for Raipur.

Notably, after the arrest of Punjilal, the Crime Branch had prayed the SJDM court to take him on a 14-day remand to which the latter had granted 6-day remand.