GUANGZHOU - A bombing victim's family is planning to take legal action against an express-delivery company and a BMW auto dealership for neglecting to check parcels for dangerous contents and for leaking the victim's private information.

The victim, who is surnamed Li and comes from Tianhe district of Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong province, received a parcel on Monday from a sender identifying itself as a BMW 4S dealership. 4S stands for sale, spare parts, service and survey.

Li Bingke, injured by a parcel bomb, is wheeled into a hospital operating room in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Wednesday. Li's family is seeking legal action against the suspect and express delivery company in the case. Sun Junbin/for China Daily

The contents of the package were marked as being perfume. In truth, though, a home-made bomb lay hidden inside. It exploded when Li opened the parcel, injuring him seriously.

"We will sue the express company and the 4S store for their roles in indirectly causing this injury," said Li's younger brother, who declined to be named.

The brother said on Friday that his family has asked for help from local lawyers.

"The express company should be partly responsible for this atrocity because it did not check the parcel before it was delivered to my brother," he said.

"And the 4S store might have leaked my brother's home address to the suspect because the information on the delivery sheet was completely in accordance with what my brother had given the store."

Both the delivery company and the BMW 4S store declined to comment on the case, saying they will cooperate with police as they investigate it.

The 38-year-old suspect, who is surnamed Zheng and hails from Central China's Henan province, was detained on Wednesday at a rental house in Guangzhou's Panyu district.

Sources with the Guangzhou police said Li had had a romantic relationship with the suspect's ex-girlfriend and that the suspect harbored a grudge against him because of that.

In a telephone interview, Li's brother said the victim, who works as a tutor at a training company, only had a work relationship with the suspect's ex-girlfriend.

The explosion seriously injured Li, rupturing one of his eyeballs. Doctors at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University said they may not be able to restore his eyesight.

Police sources said they will continue investigating the case.

The attack has raised concerns about safety in the delivery industry. Insiders saying parcels must be strictly checked before being delivered.

"Delivery workers seldom ask us to open the parcel, let alone to conduct a security check," said Wang Xiuqing, a Guangzhou resident who runs an online shop.

Even so, some express companies said customers are rarely willing to let their parcels be checked before they are delivered.

"We will often ask customers about what is inside the parcels," said a delivery worker surnamed Chen. "But they are unwilling to let us check the goods because they are concerned about protecting privacy."

There are now no regulations that require delivery companies to use X-ray equipment to conduct checks on parcels that are to be sent out.