Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 10: The Police is claimed to have cracked which has come to be known as “honeymoon murder” in Meghalaya and have arrested all the five accused in the case including the newly-wed bride Sonam Raghuvanshi, who is believed to be the mastermind of the gruesome murder of her husband, her lover Raj Kushwaha and the three alleged hired killers.
A honeymoon trip to Meghalaya turned into a full-blown murder mystery when the Indore-based businessman, Raja Raghuvanshi, was found dead days after he and his wife went missing. According to the Meghalaya Police, it was Raja’s wife, Sonam, who orchestrated the murder and allegedly conspired with her boyfriend, Raj Kushwaha, to do so.
The Meghalaya police said they suspected from day one that the “missing” wife herself was involved in the murder after they spotted the girl with one of the accused about 10 kilometres away from the spot where Raja Raghuvanshi’s body was found.
A total of five arrests have been made in the case, so far – Sonam Raghuvanshi and four men, including Raj Kushwaha, Akash Rajput, Vishal Singh Chauhan, and Anand Kurmi. While Sonam was arrested from a dhaba near Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh during the early hours of Monday, three men were arrested from Madhya Pradesh while Akash Rajput was arrested from Uttar Pradesh’s Lalitpur.
It all started after Sonam and Raja Raghuvanshi, who had got married in Indore on May 11, went for their honeymoon to Meghalaya. However, on May 23, the couple went missing, prompting a manhunt by local authorities. Days later, on June 2, Raja’s body was recovered in a gorge near Weisawdong Falls in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya.
While for a week the police was looking for the “missing” wife who simply evaporated from Meghalaya without a trace, the police reached a major breakthrough on Monday after Sonam “surrendered” before the UP police in the wee hours of Monday soon after the police picked up two accused from Indore in MP. Soon afterwards two other arrests were also made during the day and all the accused were taken to Shillong on Tuesday.
It was a local guide in Meghalaya who possibly helped crack the case by giving a major clue to the police. Albert Pde told police that the couple – Sonam and Raja Raghuvanshi – were accompanied by three male tourists on the day they went missing from Meghalaya’s Sohra area on May 23. Pde said the three men accompanied the couple as they were climbing up over 3,000 steps from Nongriat to Mawlakhiat around 10am on May 23, and added that Raja was talking to the men in Hindi.
“The four men were walking ahead while the woman was behind. The four men were conversing in Hindi, but I could not understand what they were speaking as I know only Khasi and English,” Pde said.
A day after Raja Raghuvanshi’s body was found on June 2, the police made another discovery which acted as a major clue into the murder – a bloodstained machete. A raincoat was also recovered two days later, which looked similar to the one used by the couple. The raincoat was found in Mawkma village, which is halfway between Sohrarim and the gorge where Raghuvanshi’s body was found.
According to a Meghalaya Police officer, “It was not a machete used in the region. It led to our suspicion that someone from outside the region was involved. We decided to check the call details of the couple.” The police also revealed that two sharp cut wounds have been found on the front and back of Raja’s head, as revealed in his autopsy. The police suspect that the wounds were inflicted by the same machete.
According to the police, one of the accused Raj Kushwaha is allegedly Sonam’s boyfriend and conspired with her to commit the crime. According to an Indore police officer, “Kushwaha was in contact with the killers for some weeks.” The three killers hired for the murder left for Meghalaya on May 17 and carried a phone provided by Kushwaha, according to the cop.
Also, Sonam’s call records indicate that she was in touch with Kushwaha while on the honeymoon and shared her last location with him before the couple went missing, according to a Meghalaya Police officer.
According to Raja’s mother Uma Raghuvanshi, it was Sonam who insisted on the honeymoon. Sonam also allegedly took ₹9 lakh from Raja for the honeymoon and also carried some jewellery, said the mother. When Uma asked her son when they were planning on returning, Raja told her that they had not booked return tickets yet and added that they might return within a week.
Sources said the Meghalaya Police knew on June 3, a day after they found the body of Raja Raghuvanshi in a gorge, that Sonam Raghuvanshi was involved in the honeymoon murder. There were 20 core members in the team that cracked the ‘missing-turned-murder mystery’ case, sources in the police said. 120 police personnel were involved in the case, they added.
Sonam is alleged to have hired the killers to get rid of her husband and marry her boyfriend who worked with her. Raids were conducted at several places, and the profiles of three accused were checked. It was then that Sonam Raghuvanshi was seen with the accused, 10 kilometres away from the site where her husband was killed.
The arrested accused told cops that it was Sonam who asked them to hit Raja Raghuvanshi and that he was killed in front of her, the sources said. “All the accused followed the newlyweds to Guwahati on May 21 and to Shillong on May 22. They killed Raja the next day,” they added.
They bought the murder weapon from a shop outside a hotel in Guwahati. As per the preliminary autopsy report, he was hit twice, once each on the back and front of his head. Sonam’s alleged lover Raj did not travel to Meghalaya but Shillong Police sources suggest he did the planning behind the scenes and was in touch with Sonam. Sonam had come to Meghalaya only to murder her husband, the sources said.
On May 23, Sonam Raghuvanshi left Meghalaya for Indore, where she met with his alleged lover and the co-conspirator in the murder, Raj Kushwaha, the sources said. She stayed at a rented room in Indore for a day, and then she was dropped by a driver to Uttar Pradesh. Sonam Raghuvanshi surrendered before the Nandganj Police Station in Ghazipur district in Uttar Pradesh and was later placed under arrest, according to the Meghalaya police.
The couple did not take any photos of themselves in Meghalaya and that’s what made the cops suspicious, the sources said. “The police had come to know on June 3 itself that Sonam was involved in the murder. Akash’s shirt was found at the crime scene, soaked in blood. Sonam had given her raincoat to Akash, which was found 6 km away from the crime scene. This was done to mislead the investigation. When Anand Kurmi was caught, he was wearing the same clothes that he was wearing at the time of the incident,” they added.
The police said Sonam had offered Rs 4 lakh to hired killers for the murder of her husband and later raised the amount to Rs 20 lakh. According to top police sources, Sonam helped the other accused in pushing Raghuvanshi’s body into the gorge in Meghalaya.
The hitmen hired by Sonam first met the newlywed couple in Bengaluru, from where they took their connecting flight to the northeast, the sources said, adding that since the victim and the accused were from the same city, they got talking. Sonam had allegedly hired killers to get rid of her husband as she reportedly wanted to be with her lover.
As per sources, Sonam Raghuvanshi planned the murder with her alleged lover Raj Kushwaha just a few days after her May 11 wedding in Indore. The plan of a one-way ticket to Meghalaya for the honeymoon was her plan, they said.
On May 23, Sonam and Raja Raghuvanshi went on a trek to a steep peak to see a waterfall, with the hitmen following their trail. At one point, Sonam pretended to be tired and started walking much behind her husband and the killers, the sources said. When they reached a deserted place, Sonam allegedly asked the men to kill her husband. The killers, however, refused to kill him, saying they were tired, as per the sources. Sonam Raghuvanshi then allegedly raised her offer to 20 lakh, they said.
The grieving family of Raja Raghuvanshi has demanded the harshest possible punishment for the accused, including his wife, and her alleged accomplice, saying that only capital punishment would deliver justice for the brutal crime. “Our only demand is that the government ensure all the accused, especially Sonam and those involved with her, are brought to justice and hanged. Sonam has already named those responsible, and action must be taken accordingly,” said Raja’s brother Vipin Raghuvanshi.
Sonam’s father, however, defended his daughter claiming that the Meghalaya Police were framing her to cover up their own investigative lapses. The family of Raj Kushwaha has also defended him, insisting he is innocent and has been falsely implicated. According to his family, Kushwaha, the sole breadwinner, had only a professional relationship with Sonam and was incapable of such a crime. Kushwaha’s mother, speaking to reporters, said: “My son is innocent. The police are lying. He never had any relationship with Sonam beyond work.”
