Shillong, June 10 (UNI) Sonam Raghuvanshi, the honeymoon bride, who is the prime accused in the murder of her husband Raja Raghuvanshi will be brought to Meghalaya’s state capital, Shillong, on Tuesday from Uttar Pradesh for further investigation.
Sonam was arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) code-named “Operation Honeymoon” of Meghalaya Police on Monday after she voluntarily surrendered at the Nanganj Police Station in Ghazipur district on Sunday night.
“Sonam will be brought to Shillong by this (Tuesday) evening after the Court in Uttar Pradesh had granted Meghalaya Police a 72-hour transit remand,” Vivek Syiem, the district police chief of East Khasi Hills, told UNI.
“She (Sonam) will be taken for medical examination and then produced before the court this evening,” he said.
A separate SIT team, which is making a preliminary investigation in Indore, would be bringing the other accused persons in the case - Akash Rajput (19,) Vishal Singh Chauhan (22), Raj Singh Khushwaha (21), and Anand Singh Kurmi (23) — on Wednesday to Shillong.
The SIT has not yet decided on how many days it would seek custody of the accused from the court.
“We will be having a meeting and take a collective decision on how many days of police custody we would seek,” Syiem said.
As part of the investigation, Sonam and the suspect killers will be taken to Sohra, where Raja’s decomposed body was found in a deep gorge below the Wei Sawdong parking lot at Riat Arliang, to recreate the crime scene.
Stating that Meghalaya Police was under tremendous pressure to crack the murder case, Syiem said, “After the recovery of the decomposed dead body of Raja on June 2, and that’s when an SIT was formed and the investigation started. Within seven days, two Meghalaya Police teams were sent to Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. With the support of the local police there, we were able to identify and zero in on the perpetrators.”’
“All the dots connected to indicate that there was prior planning to murder Raja. Sonam and her alleged boyfriend, Raj plotted the murder plan just a few days after her marriage. We will confirm everything once the accused are interrogated together.”
Raja and Sonam got married on May 11 and arrived in Shillong on May 20 on their honeymoon. A day later, the newlywed couple rode on a rented two-wheeler to Sohra, the wettest place on earth, in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills district.
As part of their honeymoon, the couple stayed overnight in Shipara Homestay at Nongriat village- home to the famed living double-decker root bridge on May 22.
It was on their way back to Mawlakhait village while returning from Nongriat on May 23, Albert Pde, a local tour guide, noticed Raja and Sonam were accompanied by three male tourists whom police believed that they are Akash Rajput, Vishal Singh Chauhan, and Anand Singh Kurmi (23).
Syiem said that Raja was murdered on May 23. His decomposed body was found on June 2 from a deep gorge below the Wei Sawdong parking lot at Riat Arliang in Sohra.
Sonam, together with three others, after allegedly committing the murder of Raja left Sohra and boarded a train to Indore from Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
Syiem said Sonam went to Indore and stayed at a rented place and then fled to Uttar Pradesh.
There is a possibility that she and the other accused were trying to flee to Nepal and so reached Ghazipur from where the Nepal border is close - about 200 km.
Syiem said further details of the escape from Sohra and then reaching Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh would be clearer after police interrogation.
The murder of the Indore’s honeymooner came to light after villagers found an abandoned two-wheeler, which Sonam and Raja had hired from Shillong for four days, on May 24 at Sohrarim village between Shillong and Sohra road.
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