Bolangir: The six-day remand of Punjilal Meher, the sole mastermind of the sensational Patnagarh parcel bomb blast case, ended today and the Crime Branch (CB) will produce him before the Patnagarh Court tomorrow.
According to sources, Punjilal is being taken to Bolangir from the CB Headquarters in Cuttack, where he was brought for interrogation after the Bolangir SDJM court had allowed the investigating officials to take him on a six-day remand on April 26.
DGP RP Sharma and CB ADG, SK Upadhaya on Monday had informed that there is likelihood that the investigating agency could request the Court for an extension of remand in order to elicit more information from Punjilal. Earlier, the CB had requested the Bolangir SDJM Court for a 14-day remand of Punjilal while it was granted six days.
Sources said three teams of CB investigators are trying to collect more evidences against Punjilal in order to strengthen their case. One of the three teams has been sent to Raipur to collect information on the places that Punjilal visited and also quiz the employees of the Skyking Courier Service.
Sources informed that CB will send Punjilal’s laptop to the national forensic laboratory to retrieve data which the accused had reportedly deleted after executing the crime. On the other hand, the CCTV footage collected from one of the three courier offices in Raipur will be sent to an Israel- based agency for confirming Punjilal’s presence in the video recordings. As per sources, though Punjilal was captured in the CCTV camera of the courier office, where he visited first, the data has been overwritten in the hard drive and it will be sent abroad to retrieve overwritten data.
Similarly, the anonymous letter received by Police that was used to mislead the investigation, will be sent to scientific laboratory in Gandhinagar for DNA test. It is being suspected that Punjilal might have used his saliva and the DNA test will confirm that.
On February 23, newly-wed Soumyasekhar and his grandmother were killed while his wife Reema was severely injured after the wedding gift parcel sent by Punjilal exploded inside their house in Patnagarh.