Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Tuesday assured to fast track the case related to the recent murder of a tourist from Indore, Raja Raghuvanshi and the subsequent arrest of his wife, Sonam Raghuvanshi and four others in connection with the murder case.
“….. whatever steps need to be taken from our side as a government to do it, we will do whatever needs to be done and we will try to fast track things to ensure justice for Raja,”Sangma said.
Sonam, the prime accused in the murder of her 29-year-old husband, has been arrested by the Special Investigation Team of Meghalaya Police from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district on Monday. The accused will be brought to Shillong and produce before the court later this evening.
The Meghalaya Police have arrested four persons from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh for their involvement in the murder of Raja at Sohra, a popular tourist destination, in Meghalaya.
The murder was allegedly plotted by Sonam and her boyfriend Raj Singh Kushwaha, just few days after their wedding, to hire Akash Rajput (19,) Vishal Singh Chauhan (22) and Anand Singh Kurmi (23) to kill Raja during the honeymoon to Sohra, police said.
Congratulating Meghalaya police for cracking the case in record time, the Chief Minister said, “We were given information regularly. They had in fact got the leads very early but they refrained from sharing it because they felt that it would affect the investigation. So we quietly kept investigating.”
Sangma, meanwhile, termed the misreporting by national media as “unfortunate”, and said that certain sections of the media had “twisted the entire story and kind of trying to blame the people of Meghalaya and the state for the case.
“But now that the facts are out, we know how it happened,” he said.
“I have always maintained that the people of Meghalaya and people of North East are friendly people, who always treat their guests and tourists as family. They always respect and take care so it is very unfortunate that some of the media really tried to play this in the wrong way. Now that the facts are out, things are quite clear,” Sangma underscored.
Local guide identifies one of the suspects
A local tourist guide, who alerted police about the presence of three men accompanying newlyweds Raja and Sonam Raghuvanshi on the day they went missing, on Tuesday claimed that he identified one of the suspects after seeing some photographs.
The couple went missing on May 23 before Raja’s highly decomposed body with fatal head injuries was found on June 2 near Weisawdong falls.
Albert Pde, the guide at Mawlakhiat told PTI, “I could identify one of the suspects from the photos provided by police.”
“I am happy that the criminals are finally behind the bars. We stand vindicated. Those who tried to tarnish the image of Sohra and its people as violent have now been exposed,” Pde added.
Pde had said he saw the couple accompanied by the three men as they were climbing over 3,000 steps from Nongriat to Mawlakhiat around 10 am on May 23.
According to the guide, “The four men, including Raja, were walking ahead while the woman was behind. The four men conversed in Hindi,” he said, admitting that he was not very conversant in the language.
Pde had initially offered his services to walk them to Nongriat on May 22, but they politely refused and hired another guide identified as Bha Wansai, who dropped them at Shipara homestay.
Raja was killed by men allegedly hired by Sonam, who went ‘missing’ and surfaced in UP’s Ghazipur where she surrendered at the Nandganj police station after the arrest of three assailants — Akash Rajput (19), Vishal Singh Chauhan (22), and Raj Singh Kushwaha (21) — in overnight raids.
The autopsy report of Raja Raghuvanshi indicated that he was hit twice with a sharp object on his head, officials at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) said.
“The autopsy report indicated there were two sharp cuts on the head of the deceased — one from behind and one from the front,” East Khasi Hills SP Vivek Syiem told PTI, quoting the report.
He said police have also seen the two cuts on his head too during the inquest.
According to the officer, police registered a murder case under Sohra PS after the initial inquest.