‘Tourism stakeholders shocked by the incident ** Meghalaya always a tourist-friendly state’
Shillong, June 4: Chief minister Conrad K Sangma has assured of justice in the case of murder of Raja Raghuvanshi, who along with his wife Sonam had been missing for several days before his decomposed body was recovered from a deep gorge at Weisawdong falls, Sohra while a massive search for the woman still continued.
“We will leave no stone unturned and whatever has to be done to get out the facts and to make sure that the people who are responsible for this, should be brought to book,” Sangma told reporters on Wednesday.
Asked about the family’s demand for a CBI inquiry into the matter, the chief minister said the government would take appropriate decision as per the fast evolving situation.
“It is important to get to the facts of the situation… the truth must come out. Whatever steps are required as per the situation, we will take appropriate decisions then. Right now, it is too early to say what’s happening and how much we know and how much we don’t know because there are so many missing links and factors even now as we speak,” he said.
The chief minister also assured the family members of the couple from Indore, who came on a honeymoon trip to Sohra, that the government is also trying to work as fast as possible to find the missing woman.
Terming the incident as very unfortunate, Sangma also described it as something which nobody has seen in Meghalaya.
“It has taken all of us by surprise and all of us by shock, in fact. Even the local people are surprised, the local stakeholders in the tourism sector are very surprised and very concerned. So, it is something that we actually never expected,” he stated.
Stating that Meghalaya has always been a tourist-friendly state, Sangma said, “We have always ensured the safety of tourists. In the past many years lakhs of tourists have come. So this is something very out of the ordinary for us.”
Expressing deep condolences to family members of Raja Raghuvanshi, the chief minister said, “I know it’s a great loss for them, but I want to assure the family members that we are working overtime to make sure that we get to the facts and the depth of really what happened.”
Circumstances of the incident are still not clear to the investigating authorities.
“We are all not very clear as of now what the sequences of events were, what happened, how it happened,” he said.
