Police in India arrested a person on Tuesday after a house theatre music system he gifted to his ex-girlfriend on her marriage ceremony day exploded, killing her husband and his brother. Four extra individuals have been injured within the bombing, together with an 18-month-old little one. 

On April 3, 22-year-old newly-wed Hemendra Merawi was opening items together with his brother a couple of days after his marriage ceremony within the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The items included a music system from his spouse’s ex, 33-year-old Sarju Markam.

When Merawi and his brother plugged it in and switched it on, it exploded. Police stated Markam had fitted the music system with a bomb and positioned it with different items on the marriage ceremony venue on March 31. 

“He used ammonium nitrate, petrol and gunpowder retrieved from firecrackers,” police superintendent Lal Umed Singh told the media. “He gift-wrapped it to avoid any suspicion.” 

The affect of the explosion was so violent that the partitions and roof of the room collapsed. Merawi was killed immediately and his brother, who was rushed to the hospital, died from his accidents.

The explosion brought on panic, with bombings in Chhattisgarh state normally linked to tribal communist separatist group Naxal, who’ve been engaged in a long-standing armed battle with the Indian authorities. Police, nevertheless, confirmed that Markam has no hyperlink with the motion. Markam is at the moment employed as a automotive mechanic within the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh and, according to the police, had beforehand labored in a mine in Chhattisgarh the place he realized to assemble explosives. 

Markam is being charged below India’s Explosive Substances Act, which carries a most sentence of life imprisonment. 

Police stated Markam confessed to rigging the reward with explosives as he was offended together with his ex-girlfriend for getting married. The two broke up just lately after the now widowed bride discovered he was already married with two sons. They had been relationship since 2020. 

“After she realised the truth, she refused to marry him. But he kept threatening her to marry him,” stated extra police superintendent Manisha Thakur, including that Markam had threatened Merawi twice earlier than the marriage. 

The incident types a part of a rising pattern of violence perpetrated by rejected males in India that authorities are classifying as “jilted lover syndrome.” Latest official figures present crimes towards ladies rose by 15.3 p.c in 2021, nearly all of which have been perpetrated by intimate male partners. 

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