Maverick Odisha ‘court bomber’ gets 10 years in prison

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, May 21:

Nearly 16 months after the incident, the District and Sessions Judge Court here today convicted a man  for hurling crude bomb on to the CBI Special Court Judge dais in Odisha capital and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment.

The judgement was passed by assistant session Judge PL Satpathy today.

Upendra Mohanty alias Netaji, a 63-year-old man belonging to Sarangpur village of Bari in Jajpur district, was arrested by the Badagada police soon after he hurled two crude bombs at the CBI Special Court Judge dais during lunch break on January 27 last year.

Police had registered a case against Mohanty under sections 307, 342, 341 and 3/4 Explosive Act.

Mohanty had hurled an improvised fire cracker at the Judge’s dais during lunch time when the CBI judge Manoj Kumar Panda was in his chamber, not in court room.

The explosion had damaged the office room causing two holes on the dais plank without hurting any person at the spot.

Court sources said Mohanty has a history of such crimes and has spent 35 years of his life in jail. He has been jailed thrice earlier for hurling bombs inside the premises of the Supreme Court as well as at the SJDM court.

In 1987, Upendra had assaulted district Judge Ajit Pattnaik and was in Jharpada jail for seven years. In 1994, he had hurled bomb in Supreme Court premises for which he had spent 10 year in Tihar jail. He also spent some years in Jharpada jail after assaulting M K Manik, a police officer of Khurda, sources added.

Notably, Upendra was a great follower of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and had been staying at the court premises since 2008.