M’laya tourist murder case: Search team recover stained raincoat

A raincoat appearing to be stained with blood was recovered on Wednesday during the search and rescue operation to locate Sonam Raghuvanshi, one of the missing tourist couple from Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, near the Mawkma road, Sohra in Meghalaya.
The recovery of a raincoat came two days after the search and rescue team retrieved the decomposed body of Raja Raghuvanshi, husband of Sonam from a deep gorge below the Weisawdong parking lot at Riat Arliang.
On Wednesday, the search and rescue team comprised of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Fire and Emergency crew and Special Operation Team recovered a raincoat possible blood stains on it from a gorge at AD view point at Mawkma village.
“We recovered a wet raincoat. There are certain stains on it, but we cannot confirm if those are blood stains—only forensic tests will determine that,” Vivek Syiem, the district police chief of East Khasi Hills, said.
“We will compare with the footages that we have, whether it belongs to the female or not, and only after some time we can confirm. Even the size also is 3XL,” Syiem said.
After searching the gorge at AD view point, the search and rescue team then proceeded back to the same location, about 5-6 km away, where Raja’s body was first spotted by a police drone in a deep gorge below the Weisawdong parking lot at Riat Arliang.
A NDRF man rappelled down to the deep
gorge with dense vegetation but ascended after going down over 200 feet due to poor visibility and no sight of the landing site.
“The terrain is challenging. Our man went down over 200 feet, but there was poor visibility down below due to heavy fog, unstable ground and the sheer drop with no signs of a landing area below with the thick foliage covering the gorge,” NDRF Team Commander Lal Ringson said.
He said the search has been called off for today and would resume the search on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Meghalaya police are awaiting the post mortem report after the decomposed body of Raja.
Meghalaya police have filed a murder case in this regard and a Special Investigation Team headed by Superintendent of Police (Shillong City) Herbert Pyniaid Kharkongor has been constituted for further probe into the death.
Transport businessman Raja Raghuvanshi and his wife Sonam went missing on May 23 while on a honeymoon at Sohra, also known as Cherrapunjee, a popular tourist destination in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills district on their honeymoon.
The couple had visited the double-decker root bridge at Nongrait as part of their honeymoon. The couple checked into Shipara Homestay at Nongriat on May 22 where they stayed overnight and checked out the next morning.