Patnagarh bombing
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The Patnagarh Bombing (also referred to as the Patnagarh Parcel Bomb in news reports) was a bombing that took place in Patnagarh, a Notified area Council of Bolangir District in Indian state of Odisha, on 23 February 2018. Soumya Sekhar Sahu, a 26-year-old software engineer, and his great-aunt, Jemamani Sahu, were killed by a letter bomb delivered to Soumya's house few days after his wedding. Soumya's wife, Reema was seriously injured. After months of investigation, Police arrested a colleague of Soumya's mother whom she had replaced at the college where she taught.[1]
On 23 February 2018, five days after the wedding of Soumya Sekhar Sahu and Reema Sahu, an explosion occurred at their home in Patnagarh, Odisha, India as Soumya opened a just-delivered parcel. The parcel had a return address of a person unknown to either of them, S. K. Sharma of Raipur, 230 kilometres (140 mi) away. Soumya reportedly remarked, "This looks like a wedding gift. The only thing that I don't know is the sender. I don't know anyone in Raipur".[2] The resulting explosion tore the plaster off the ceiling, cracked the walls, and hurled the kitchen window into a nearby field. Soumya and his great-aunt Jemamani, who was visiting the couple at the time, suffered 90% TBSA burns and died en route to hospital. Reema was taken to hospital with serious injuries.[3]
Investigation
Neither of the couple had known enemies. Soumya Sekhar's parents were college lecturers. Soumya worked for a Japanese electronics firm in Bangalore.[2]
Police still did not have a suspect a month after the fatal bombing. Pressured by media coverage, including a video of Soumya's wife wailing upon learning of her husband's death, the police turned the case over to an elite police branch in the state capital.[2] One suspect was cleared after police traced a threatening call to Soumya shekhar, after he underwent a voluntary polygraph test,[4] he was dismissed as a suspect. Police investigators traced the package to a courier company, but it had no office video surveillance of the package's customer.[2]