Meghalaya Honeymoon Murder Case: Honeymooner Raja Raghuvanshi’s body was found along with a murder weapon from inside a gorge around a week ago
Meghalaya Murder Case Update: Three assailants from Madhya Pradesh have been arrested, and the wife, Sonam, has surrendered to the police. Eighteen days after a couple from Madhya Pradesh went missing while on their honeymoon in Meghalaya, and a week after the body of the husband, Raja Raghuvanshi, along with a murder weapon, was found.
In a post on Monday morning, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma confirmed this: “Within seven days, a major breakthrough has been achieved by the Meghalaya Police in the Raja murder case… three assailants who are from Madhya Pradesh have been arrested, female has surrendered, and the operation is still on to catch one additional assailant.”
Meghalaya DGP Idashisha Nongrang said that Sonam had allegedly hired men to murder her husband. She surrendered in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district on Sunday.
The SIT apprehended one individual from Uttar Pradesh and two others from Indore. The accused who was arrested has named a few more people. The DGP was quoted by PTI as saying, “They revealed that the victim’s wife had hired them… Sonam surrendered at the Nandganj police station in UP, and was subsequently arrested.”
In Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh, Akash Rajput, 19, was taken into custody. Both Raj Singh Kushwaha, 21, and Vishal Singh Chauhan, 22, were taken into custody from Indore. Another individual, Anand Kurmi, 23, was recently arrested from the Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh.
The newlyweds, who had only tied the knot a month prior, were reported missing while on their honeymoon in Meghalaya’s Sohra. Their family members reached Meghalaya after they couldn’t reach them on the phone, and a massive search operation was launched involving the police, SDRF, NDRF, SOT and drones. Finally, Raja’s body was pulled from a gorge below Wei Sawdong Falls on Monday. It was observed by a police drone.
This case took a new turn after his body and a dao—a local cutting tool—were recovered, which the police later determined to be the murder weapon. The police had constituted an SIT led by SP (City) East Khasi Hills Herbert Pynniaid Kharkongor to investigate the alleged murder.