SHILLONG, June 11: (PTI) Raja Raghuvanshi, the Indore resident killed while honeymooning in Meghalaya, was told by his wife Sonam that she would let him consummate the marriage only after making an offering at the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, investigators said on Wednesday.
Accordingly, Raja planned their trip to Guwahati and adjacent Meghalaya for the honeymoon, while his wife and her boyfriend allegedly plotted to kill him in the jungles of the northeastern state, considering its perceived remoteness, they said.
“Sonam convinced her husband Raja that they need to make offerings at the Kamakhya Devi Temple before consummating the marriage,” a police officer who is a part of the investigation told PTI.
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Sonam and Raja got married in Indore on May 11 and arrived in Meghalaya via Guwahati in Assam on May 20. Both of them went missing on May 23 in Sohra in East Khasi Hills district, hours after checking out of a homestay at Nongriat village.
Raja’s body was found in a gorge near Weisawdong Falls on June 2. A search continued for Sonam, who emerged in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur, around 1,200 km away, in the early hours of June 9 and surrendered as police arrested his boyfriend Raj Kushwaha and the three contract killers hired by them to murder Raja.
“Sonam coerced her husband to take her to the deep jungles of Nongriat with the belief that the hitmen she hired would have a better chance of killing him somewhere on the route, considering it is secluded. But, since there were too many tourists trekking to Nongriat on May 22 and May 23, they couldn’t kill him there,” the officer said.
“They finally killed him near Weisawdong Falls, and dumped his body into the deep gorge,” he said.
East Khasi Hills SP Vivek Syiem, who is overseeing the investigation, told PTI that the contract killers arrived in Guwahati on May 21, a day after the couple reached the Northeast.
The killers procured a machete from outside their hotel in Guwahati, and then travelled by road to Shillong, he said.
“We have gathered CCTV evidence, making this investigation a very tight-knit one,” he said.
Sonam was in touch with her boyfriend Raj throughout the day of the murder, while Raj coordinated with the three contract killers, he said.
“Sonam was present when Raja was killed,” the officer said, adding that after the crime, she fled.
“She took a taxi from Mawkdok to Shillong, and then hired a tourist cab to Guwahati before boarding multiple trains to avoid detection. While she claims to have reached Indore directly, this is still being verified,” he said.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Meghalaya Police is working across locations to piece together the entire chain of events, another officer said.
“We are also verifying Sonam’s claim that she had never been to Meghalaya before. The SIT is committed to filing a watertight chargesheet,” he said.
Sonam, her boyfriend Raj and the three suspected contract killers — Vishal Singh Chauhan, Akash Rajput, and Anand Kurmi — were produced before a court in Shillong.
