Shillong, June 9: A secret love affair that spiralled into murder has finally been unravelled, following a dramatic two-state manhunt. The discovery of a honeymooner’s body in Meghalaya’s popular Sohra tourist region sparked a high-stakes investigation that put the state in the national spotlight—for all the wrong reasons.
It was the detention of the missing victim Raja Raghuvanshi’s wife Sonam in Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh- thousands of kms away from where she had gone “missing” with her late husband in the Sohra region of East Khasi Hills that the lid was finally blown wide open. She handed herself in after receiving news that her paramour had been arrested.
Today, Sonam, who till the other day was a missing person case and probable victim, with multiple teams searching for her in the jungles of East Khasi Hills, has become the prime suspect in the murder of her own husband.
Three assassins including Sonam’s alleged paramour Raj Kushwana, who hired the killers, are in police custody.
This was made possible because of the meticulous investigation carried out by Meghalaya police- particularly East Khasi Hills district led by its SP Vivek Syiem.
The investigation unearthed what police allege is a premeditated murder case with substantial evidence to implicate the victim’s wife and her partner, Raj Kushwana.
“Initially we had presumed it was a case of a missing person during a trek or an accident since there had been a previous incident in the area. It was when we found the body on the second day of the search, we were able to ascertain it was not an accident but a homicide,” said SP Vivek Syiem to the media.
He said that a special SIT was formed, investigation launched and evidence collected. “Within seven days we dispatched two teams to Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, and with the support of the local police we were able to identify and zero in on the culprits,” revealed Syiem.
Two of the men were picked up from Indore and a third from a separate location in Madhya Pradesh. One more accused was arrested from Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The arrested men are Raj Kushwana (Sonam’s alleged lover) and her husband’s killers Vishal Singh Chauhan, Akash Rajput and Anand Kurmi.
The investigation has also led to the revelation that the killers purchased the murder victim, a dao, from Guwahati, before their arrival in Shillong.
Following interrogation of the arrested men, Additional Commissioner of Police, Indore, Amit Singh, revealed that Raja’s wife Sonam and her paramour Raj Kushwana finalised a plan to murder Raja Raghuvanshi on May 16th, barely five days after her wedding.
The killers left for Sohra to execute their plan and make it look like a missing person’s case. Raja’s wife Sonam provided the GPS locations of their movement and stay to the killers, revealed Additional Commissioner Amit Singh.
The murder was committed on May 23rd and the killers quickly and quietly left the state unnoticed- or so they believed, unaware that technical teams of Meghalaya police were already on the ground collecting crucial data and clues to find the killers. Their run for freedom ended two weeks later.
