Sonam Raghuvanshi claims ‘I’m victim, not an accused' in Meghalaya honeymoon murder case | What we know so far

The case of the Meghalaya honeymoon murder took an interesting turn after Sonam Raghuvanshi, the Indore woman who went missing with her husband Raja Raghuvanshi during her honeymoon in Meghalaya, showed up at a Ghazipur dhaba in the early hours of Monday.

The Indore couple went missing while vacationing in Sohra area in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills district on May 23. Raja Raghuvanshi's body was found in a gorge on June 2. A gold ring and a neck chain were found missing from his body, further leading to suspicion that he was murdered.

What we know so far: Top 10 points

1. Sonam Raghuvanshi was taken into custody after she surfaced in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur on Monday morning and approached a dhaba owner for help. She claimed that an attempt was made to rob her, after which she fell unconscious and did not remember how she ended up in Ghazipur, an India Today report said.
2. A News18 report, quoting police sources, said that Sonam has claimed innocence and alleged abduction. She claimed she was not an accused, but a victim in the case. However, Meghalaya Police has named Sonam one of the prime accused in the case, saying that she had hired killers for the murder of her husband.

3. Four accused have been arrested, Meghalaya Deputy CM Prestone Tynsong said on Monday, with Sonam's arrest making it to five people being held in the case so far. “We are in the process of bringing her to Shillong for further investigation,” Tynsong told ANI.

“The first person arrested is 19-year-old Akash Rajput, from Lalitpur. The second accused is Vishal Singh Chauhan, age 22 years, from Indore, and the third is Raj Singh Kushwaha, age 21 years, from Indore," Vivek Syiem, Superintendent of Police, East Khasi Hills, said.

4. The fourth accused in the case, Anand Patel, who is a resident of Indore, was arrested in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar. “Meghalaya police contacted us and they even came here. Location of Anand Patel, one of the accused in the case, was found to be in Basari. The accused has been caught after a joint operation and Meghalaya Police has taken him for further investigation,” ASP Sagar Sanjeev Uikey told ANI on Monday.

5. Raj Kushwaha, Sonam Raghuvanshi's alleged boyfriend, was taken into custody on Monday, who the Meghalaya Police said was not in the state during the time of the alleged murder and was handling it “from outside”, the News18 report said.

6. Meghalaya Deputy CM Prestone Tynsong on Monday said that CM Conrad Sangma had lost his sleep over the incident and that Meghalaya was safe for tourists. “All these days they have blamed the people and government of Meghalaya… Meghalaya is safe, and they need to learn not to jump to conclusions without getting all the facts and details. It creates confusion... Our police force has performed exceptionally well and the police and our government, including the CM would hardly sleep because we wanted to solve this mystery at the earliest,” he told ANI.

7. Meghalaya Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh called it a “clear case of love triangle”. “It is clearly a case that involved a love triangle and the main accused had engaged contract killers in order to carry out a heinous crime,” he said.

Reiterating Deputy CM Tynsong's statement that Meghalaya is safe for tourists, Lyngdoh said, “We have proved that we have a capable police force that has been able to solve this case. As a state, we continue to play hosts to tourists from across the country and abroad...We will also keep engaging with the entire local tourist fraternity to ensure upscale capacity to prevent such cases.”

8. A tourist guide in Mawlakhiat, Albert Pde, had seen Raghuvanshi and his wife with three men on the day they went missing, a PTI report said on Saturday. Albert said that he had seen the couple, accompanied by three men, as they were climbing over 3,000 steps from Nongriat to Mawlakhiat around 10 am on May 23.

Albert said he recognised the couple as he had offered his services to them on the previous day to see the famed living roots bridge in Nongriat, but they had politely refused and hired another guide. He also said that all three men accompanying the couple were speaking in Hindi, indicating that they were not locals.

9. The couple had left for Meghalaya for their honeymoon on May 20 after getting married on May 11. They arrived at Mawlakhiat village on May 22 on a rented scooter. Two days later, their rented scooter was found abandoned at a cafe along the road from Shillong to Sohra, following which the search for them began, the PTI report said.

10. A day after Raja Raghuvanshi's body was found in a gorge, a bloodstained machete was also found nearby. Two days later, a raincoat that was similar to the one used by the couple was found in Mawkma village, halfway between Sohrarim and the gorge where Raghuvanshi's body was found.

(With inputs from agencies)