Odisha CM orders Crime Branch probe into Patnagarh wedding gift blast

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik this evening ordered for a probe by the Crime Branch police into the sensational Patnagarh parcel bomb blast case in which two persons including a newly-wed groom were killed and the bride sustained critical injuries.

Bride Reema Rani Sahu’s father Subal Sahu is hopeful that with Crime Branch probe, the culprits will be nabbed.

“I now feel relieved with Chief Minister’s order for a Crime Branch probe. I am sure the culprits will be nabbed and we will get justice,” stated Subal in his reactions after Chief Minister Patnaik ordered for a Crime Branch probe.

Earlier on Wednesday, nearly 26 days after the blast on knowing from old newspapers that her husband Soumya Sekhar was killed in the explosion, Reema Rani in a two-minute video that has gone viral had made an emotional appeal to the Chief Minister seeking justice and arrest of the culprits.

Prior to her appeal to the Chief Minister in the video, her mother-in-law and father had called on the Chief Minister seeking his intervention to expedite the probe and book the culprits at the earliest. The Chief Minister had assured them of justice and a speedy probe in the case.

Notably, Reema Rani’s husband Soumya Sekhar and latter’s grandmother Jemamani were killed when a bomb wrapped as a wedding gift blasted while unwrapping on February 23, four days after the couple’s marriage.

Reema Rani, who had sustained 36 percent burn injuries in the blast, is currently undergoing treatment at the Plastic Surgery department of SCB Medical College & Hospital in Cuttack.