UP woman claims honeymoon murder accused Sonam travelled with her on bus: ‘Asked me to avoid social media'
Ujala Yadav said that Sonam borrowed her phone, typed in a number, and deleted it before returning the device.
An Uttar Pradesh woman has claimed that she and Sonam Raghuvanshi, who is accused of killing her husband Raja Raghuvanshi in Meghalaya, had travelled together in the same bus from Varanasi to Ghazipur on the night of June 8.
Ujala Yadav, a student in Holipur (Inamipur) village in Ghazipur district’s Saidpur area, told the media that she first saw Sonam outside the Varanasi railway station and later at a bus terminal, where they both boarded the same bus.
Ujala said that Sonam was accompanied by two young men outside the Varanasi railway station, according to The New Indian Express.
Recalling the bus journey, Ujala said that Sonam had covered her face with a scarf and was wearing a t-shirt.
"She was seated adjacent to my seat. During the journey, she asked a male passenger seated next to her to lend his phone to make a call to someone, but he refused to oblige,” Ujala was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
She added that after the male passenger changed his seat, Sonam shifted to her side and borrowed her phone. Ujala also mentioned that Sonam typed a number, then deleted it before handing the phone back to her.
Sonam asked woman to avoid social media
Sonam also asked her to avoid social media and refrain from watching reports on the honeymoon case after realising that Ujala was reading about it online. “Don’t watch useless things,” Sonam told her, according to a report by AajTak.
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Ujala said that throughout the journey, Sonam kept asking how soon she could reach Gorakhpur.
"I saw her face for a few seconds, when she took water from my bottle and sprinkled it on her face after removing the scarf," Ujala said, according to the New Indian Express.
"In the morning (next day) when I saw the TV channels, I saw the news about Raja Raghuvanshi’s missing wife Sonam Raghuvanshi resurfacing after 17 days at a dhaba in Nandganj in my native Ghazipur district…I immediately recognised her and figured she might have stepped down near the dhaba in the Nandganj area," she said, according to the report.
The murder case
Raja Raghuvanshi and his wife Sonam were reported missing during their honeymoon in Meghalaya on May 23. On June 2, Raghuvanshi's body was found in a deep gorge close to a waterfall in the Sohra area, also known as Cherrapunji, within the East Khasi Hills district.
As the search continued for Sonam, she emerged in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur, around 1,200 km away from the crime spot, in the early hours of June 9 and surrendered before police.
According to police, Sonam conspired with her boyfriend Raj Kushwaha to hire three other men to kill her husband Raja during their honeymoon, nearly two weeks after their wedding. The three killers — Akash Thakur, Anand Kurmi and Vishal Chauhan — are friends and one of them is Raj’s cousin.
