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How Sonam Raghuvanshi manipulated Raja with marriage consummation promise
Sonam allegedly coerced her husband to take her to the deep jungles of Nongriat with the belief that the hitmen would have a better chance of killing him.
Sonam Raghuvanshi, the Indore woman accused of killing her husband during their honeymoon in Meghalaya, allegedly kept the victim, Raja Raghuvanshi, at bay by promising to consummate the marriage only after visiting the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati. The woman allegedly plotted the murder because she wasn't happy with her marriage to the victim and had an affair with her father's employee, Raj Kushwaha.
Complying with her condition, the newlywed couple planned a trip to Guwahati and adjacent Meghalaya for the honeymoon.
"Sonam convinced her husband Raja that they need to make offerings at the Kamakhya Devi Temple before consummating the marriage," a police officer, who is a part of the investigation, told PTI.
Sonam and Raja got married in Indore on May 11 and arrived in Meghalaya via Guwahati in Assam on May 20. Three days later, they went missing in the East Khasi Hills district, hours after checking out of a homestay at Nongriat village.
While Raja's body was found in a gorge near the Weisawdong Falls on June 2, Sonam remained missing until June 9, when she mysteriously surfaced in UP's Ghazipur.
The officer said Sonam coerced her husband to take her to the deep jungles of Nongriat with the belief that the hitmen she hired would have a better chance of killing him.
"But, since there were too many tourists trekking to Nongriat on May 22 and May 23, they couldn't kill him there," the officer added.
"They finally killed him near Weisawdong Falls, and dumped his body into the deep gorge," he added.
Raja Raghuvanshi murder: The sequence of events revealed
East Khasi Hills SP Vivek Syiem said the killers arrived in Guwahati on May 21. They procured a machete from outside their hotel in Guwahati and then travelled by road to Shillong.
All this while, Sonam remained in touch with her boyfriend Raj, who coordinated with the contract killers.
"Sonam was present when Raja was killed," the senior Meghalaya police officer said.
"She took a taxi from Mawkdok to Shillong, and then hired a tourist cab to Guwahati before boarding multiple trains to avoid detection. While she claims to have reached Indore directly, this is still being verified," he added.
Meanwhile, Sonam's brother, Govind, has said that he is fully convinced that she killed her husband. He also revealed that Raj Kushwah called her "elder sister", and she would tie a rakhi on Raksha Bandhan.
