Angered by her marriage, man gifts speakers rigged with explosives to woman’s husband: Chhattisgarh Police

Khan’s shop was shut when the gift was delivered. On August 15, when Khan reached his shop and opened the gift, he saw the speakers were much heavier than a normal system.

Suspecting something amiss, Khan called up the local Gandai police, who reached the spot. After preliminary investigation, a Bomb Detection and Disposal Team (BDDS) team reached the spot and a dog from the squad detected the explosives hidden in the speakers.

“At first, it was a blind case with no clues. But we started searching for the accused based on technical evidence which led us to the prime accused,” said an official.

The main accused, Vinay Verma, is an ITI diploma holder and works as an electrician. He also installs bore-wells due to which he has experience of conducting explosions.

The police seized Verma’s phone, which showed he had made online searches on how to make bombs and how to not get caught by police.

Verma assembled the bomb inside the music system with the help of online tutorials. The bomb contained gelatin sticks to cause the explosion, and was designed in such a way that it would have automatically triggered a blast when the music system is plugged into an electric socket.

Verma told police he was confident that he would not get caught and was shocked when the police traced him. When questioned about the motive, Verma said he had “one-sided love” for Khan’s wife, who is from his neighbouring village, and that he had feelings for her since they were in school, police said.

Khan told police that his wife, who he had recently married, had alerted him that Verma used to stalk her before marriage and that he may try to harm them. Khan said his wife’s caution made him suspicious of the gift.

During questioning, Verma told police about his accomplices who helped him source the IED, which was bought for a few thousand rupees from a stone quarry in Durg district, and those who helped him deliver the gift and create the fake postal stamp on it, police said.

Verma’s arrested aides have been identified as Parmeshwar Verma (25), Gopal Verma (22), Ghasiram Verma (46), Dilip Dhimar (38), Gopal Khelwar and Khilesh Verma (19). The police, however, said that the three accused who helped to smuggle the explosives may not have known what Verma was planning to do.

The police have seized explosive materials and other evidence linked to the crime. The police said they would also be questioning the stone quarry owner on how the explosives were siphoned off.

This comes a couple of years after another such incident took place in neighbouring Kabirdham district in April 2023, when a 25-year-old newly-wed man and his 30-year-old brother were killed when the speakers of a home theatre received as a wedding gift exploded while they were trying to set it up.

In that case, one Sarju Markam, 33, who worked as an auto mechanic, was arrested. Markam was upset after being spurned by a woman, though he was married and a father of two. He allegedly planned to murder her newly married husband.