What promised to be a romantic escape into the misty green embrace of Meghalaya’s hills ended in chilling silence and a decomposing corpse at the bottom of a gorge.

Raja and Sonam Raghuvanshi, a newly married couple from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, arrived in Cherrapunji to celebrate their union. On 23 May, both mysteriously vanished in the dense wilderness near the famed waterfalls of Cherrapunji. Seventeen days later, the case took a terrifying twist—Sonam suddenly emerged from hiding and surrendered to police in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh.

Before her reappearance, a grim discovery had been made. On 2 June, locals and police stumbled upon Raja’s decomposed body, rotting at the base of a gorge. The stench of death lingered through the forested slopes near Wei Sawdong Falls, confirming what many feared. The honeymoon had ended in horror. What was meant to be the beginning of a lifetime together had become a criminal investigation—marked by betrayal, secrecy, and a brutal end.

The police hunt then zeroed in on Sonam. She had disappeared—vanished like mist—after the murder. But her surrender wasn’t a coincidence. As the net closed in on those suspected of involvement, her name surfaced. According to East Khasi Hills SP Vivek Syiem, “Once the team reaches there, they will arrest her and take transit remand... Yes, it appears so (Sonam had a boyfriend)... Two teams of Meghalaya Police are there in MP and one team is going to UP to arrest Sonam... It is a fact that she called up her relatives but all this happened after the raids were conducted... If you look at it logically, all these days she hadn't come out, but last night when Raj Kushwaha and others were caught, suddenly she surfaced. That speaks for itself.”

Behind the curtain of this dark tragedy, a shocking motive was beginning to unfold.

Contrary to early rumors, Sonam wasn’t captured. The Meghalaya Police clarified that she "voluntarily surrendered". As stated officially, “In a further development, Smt Sonam Raghuvanshi has voluntarily surrendered at the Nandganj Police Station in Ghazipur district, Uttar Pradesh, and is currently in the safe custody of the Uttar Pradesh Police. Necessary legal protocols are being followed for her transit and formal statement,”. This fact was also confirmed by Deputy CM Prestone Tynsong, lending weight to the official version.

By now, the story was beginning to unravel like a sinister plotline. Police announced they had arrested three men suspected of involvement—two from Indore and one from Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh. The police added, “Following sustained investigative efforts and multi-state coordination, three individuals have been apprehended in connection with this case—two from Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and one from Lalitpur (Uttar Pradesh). These arrests mark a decisive development in unravelling the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Shri Raja Raghuvanshi and the subsequent disappearance of his wife, Smt. Sonam Raghuvanshi.”

What had started as a love story ended as a calculated killing.

Sonam is now in police custody, the prime suspect in what’s being described as a contract killing. Investigators believe she plotted her husband’s murder and hired killers to execute it during their honeymoon. A night soaked in betrayal, the murder is suspected to have occurred between 23 and 24 May at around 2 AM—the exact hour when both their phones went dead. Their last known location? Cherrapunji.

According to sources cited by ThePrint, Sonam and “her lover” had planned the murder “meticulously”, even before she married Raja on 11 May. They hoped to pass it off as a “robbery bid”—but the cracks in the story appeared too fast, and too deep.

Of the three accused, police identified Raj Kushwaha, Vicky Thakur, and Anand. One name looms larger than the rest—Kushwaha, said to be one of the masterminds behind the plot. The net had been cast wide, and technology played a vital role. “We arrested them based on technical surveillance. Through technical analysis, the locations of the suspects were identified. The first person was zeroed down in Lalitpur and then the other two were arrested. Sonam was arrested from Ghazipur,” said D.N.R. Marak, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Meghalaya. “Further investigation is on.”

After the murder, Sonam fled the state, leaving behind not just a body, but an entire town haunted by betrayal. Raja’s corpse was discovered on 2 June, thrown cruelly into a gorge below Wei Sawdong Falls’s parking lot, in Riat Arliang. It was a scene of unimaginable horror.

The thread of clues led police to a Kashi dhaba along the Varanasi–Ghazipur road, where they found Sonam, dazed and broken. SP Iraj Raja of Ghazipur confirmed that she was located, treated, and surrendered at Nandganj Police Station between 3 and 3:30 AM. Her quiet surrender under cover of darkness was the final sign that she had nowhere left to run.

A senior officer close to the probe revealed, “It appears that Sonam panicked after the men were picked up. She was in touch with Raj Kushwaha. The accused said that Sonam and her lover had asked them to kill the victim.”

The efforts to untangle this web of deceit stretched across states and departments. “This outcome is the result of round-the-clock efforts by the Meghalaya Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), supported by the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), local intelligence units, and law enforcement agencies across multiple states. Despite geographical and logistical challenges, our teams remained steadfast in their commitment to upholding the rule of law. Further investigation is on in the matter,” stated S.R. Marak, Assistant Inspector General of Police, Meghalaya.

The horror of the crime deepened with every new clue. Police recovered a bloodstained machete, likely the murder weapon. Nearby, a black raincoat, suspected to be Sonam’s, was found—its fabric possibly soaked in blood. The killer hadn’t even bothered to clean the scene.

Worse still, the couple’s rented scooter was discovered abandoned the next day, not far from the site. It stood eerily by the Shillong–Sohra highway, the key still in its ignition, waiting as if for a return that would never come.

This was no random crime. This was a honeymoon carved into horror—an icy, deliberate plan cloaked in the fog of Meghalaya’s beauty, now unraveling before the nation.

CCTV Footage & Witness Accounts Add a Sinister Twist to the Honeymoon Murder Case

The serene trails of Meghalaya, known for their breathtaking waterfalls and ancient root bridges, have now become the backdrop for one of the most chilling mysteries in recent times. Each clue, each image, and each voice paints a darker picture of a honeymoon gone horribly wrong.

According to police, Raja and Sonam Raghuvanshi arrived in Shillong around 6 pm on 21 May and checked into Balaji Hotel. It was the beginning of what should have been a joyful journey into the green heart of the Northeast. But instead of peace, their path turned bloody. The next day, they set out on a rented scooter towards Sohra and Cherrapunji, riding along the winding hill roads as many tourists do. Once in the area, they hired a local guide and trekked to Shipara Homestay in Nongriat village, tucked deep in the East Khasi Hills.

On the morning of 23 May, the couple was last seen checking out of the homestay, their mobile phone signals pinging for the last time from Nongriat. That was the final digital trace they left behind.

But then came the twist that changed the course of the investigation.

CCTV footage from the same day shows the couple dropping off luggage at a homestay, with a red car seen trailing them—raising suspicions that they were being followed. The camera didn’t just capture a couple on vacation. It might have recorded a scene of prey being watched by predators. That one suspicious red vehicle—so ordinary on any other day—could now hold the key to Raja’s death.

The tension escalated just two days later, when Meghalaya Police recovered a bloodstained machete near the area, believed to have been used in the crime. The weapon was immediately sent for forensic testing, a silent witness to the brutal violence that unfolded in the forested trail.

As detectives dug deeper, eyewitness accounts added more shadows to an already sinister picture. One such witness, a local guide named Albert Pde, claimed that he had seen the couple around 10 am on 23 May, trekking from Nongriat to Mawlakhiat. But what he described next sent a chill through the police department.

He said that the couple was accompanied by three unfamiliar men, strangers whose presence made no sense on a honeymoon trek. According to Albert, the couple appeared tired from the descent—reportedly having walked down nearly 3,000 steps to reach the scenic double-decker living root bridges. He recalled how strange it was that they returned without a guide the next morning. And even more chilling—they were not seen again after that.

Other witnesses reportedly noted Sonam behaving in an unusual, tense manner during a phone call, observed walking away from Raja. Her strained expressions, paired with her wandering away from her husband, only increased suspicions. Combined with the CCTV footage and Albert's testimony, a terrifying theory began to emerge: they weren’t alone. Someone was watching. Maybe even waiting.

As the manhunt intensified and the story exploded across states, the digital trail became more important. While Meghalaya Police say they tracked her location using technical surveillance, Sonam’s family claims she returned of her own will and has nothing to hide. Her father, Devi Singh, defended her innocence in the media. “She went to Ghazipur to take shelter after being mentally harassed. Now they are trying to blame her,” he said. His voice cracked with frustration, insisting that his daughter had been scapegoated by a system desperate for answers.

Meanwhile, the case caught the attention of the highest levels of state leadership. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma publicly acknowledged the rapid breakthrough in the investigation, writing on X:
“Within 7 days a major breakthrough has been achieved by the #meghalayapolice in the Raja murder case … 3 assailants who are from Madhya Pradesh have been arrested, female has surrendered and operation still on to catch 1 more assailant .. well done.”

Back in Ghazipur, Superintendent of Police Neeraj Raja shared further details about Sonam’s whereabouts and state of mind. “In the morning, we (Ghazipur Police) received information from Madhya Pradesh Police that a woman named Sonam Raghuvanshi is at Kashi Dhabha on Varansi-Gorakhpur highway... Immediate action was taken, and Sonam was taken to the District hospital for first aid, from where she was taken to the One Stop Centre, and currently, she is there,” he said. His statement suggested urgency, but also care, as Sonam’s physical and mental state was considered.

“We have received some details and are in constant contact with Meghalaya and MP Police. Their team will arrive here and carry forward the investigation regarding Sonam's case,” he added, emphasizing the multi-state coordination still underway.

A senior police official confirmed the location: Sonam Raghuvanshi, wife of the late Raja Raghuvanshi, was located near a roadside dhaba on the Varanasi-Ghazipur highway. From a hilltop paradise in Meghalaya to a roadside eatery in UP, Sonam’s journey has been anything but ordinary. And somewhere in between lies the truth of a husband’s murder, a wife's fear—or guilt—and the deadly plot that turned a honeymoon into a manhunt.

Innocent or Mastermind? The War of Words Between Sonam’s Family and the Police

As the horrifying saga of the honeymoon murder continues to unfold, the once simple image of a newly married couple lost in the scenic hills of Meghalaya has now turned into a full-blown crime drama filled with accusations, heartbreak, and an emotional war of words. The battle lines are now drawn—not just in the courtroom, but in the court of public opinion.

The biggest twist came with a damning statement from Meghalaya’s police chief, I Nongrang, who said that Raja Raghuvanshi was allegedly murdered by men his wife had hired during their honeymoon. The shocking claim gave a chilling new direction to the investigation. “The arrested men have revealed that the wife had hired them to kill Raghuvanshi,” Nongrang revealed, turning the spotlight directly on Sonam Raghuvanshi—not as a grieving widow, but as a suspected mastermind.

The timeline of the crime, built through CCTV footage, witness accounts, and technical surveillance, was already painting a grim picture. Earlier, a local guide told the police that the couple was last seen along with three unknown men on the day they went missing, a fact that immediately shifted the trajectory of the case from a missing persons file to a calculated murder plot.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma again praised the swift progress of the investigation, reinforcing the police’s position. “Within 7 days, a major breakthrough has been achieved by the #meghalayapolice in the Raja murder case… 3 assailants who are from Madhya Pradesh have been arrested, female has surrendered and operation still on to catch 1 more assailant… well done," he posted on X.

But while the Meghalaya police celebrate the unraveling of the mystery, Sonam’s family paints a completely different story—one filled with pain, disbelief, and a plea for justice that they claim has taken a wrong turn.

Her father, Devi Singh, has outright rejected the police's narrative and is now demanding a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) inquiry into the matter. “My daughter reached the roadside eatery, and she was crying and called from there. It was from the dhaba that the police picked her up. I haven’t spoken to my daughter yet,” he stated, describing her emotional state during her surrender. His voice cracked not just from sorrow, but from anger.

“The police are lying," he claimed, adding a heartbreaking question: “Why would my daughter do something like this? If she intended to do something like this, why would she go out travelling?” His disbelief reflects the confusion many feel when looking at Sonam’s smiling honeymoon photos now replaced by headlines linking her to a heinous crime.

Taking his plea further, Devi Singh has publicly appealed to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to intervene. He insists that “The Meghalaya Police have cooked up this story midway. My daughter is innocent.” His voice joins a growing demand for a neutral agency to take over, as trust in the current investigation wanes within the family.

Meanwhile, Sonam’s mother, Sangeeta, is struggling to balance relief and sorrow. “Now we want to know who was behind Raja’s murder. There’s sorrow even though she has returned, we lost Raja,” she said. The pain of losing a son-in-law while seeing their daughter pulled into a murder case has left the family devastated and searching for answers.

But the police, on their part, believe the surrender wasn’t entirely voluntary. They claim it was the result of tightening pressure from a relentless investigation. Police said Sonam Raghuvanshi ‘surrendered under pressure’ in connection with her husband’s murder during their honeymoon in Meghalaya.

Speaking to IANS, Meghalaya Inspector General of Police (Law and Order), Dalton P Marak, confirmed that the probe is far from over. “Sonam will be brought back to Meghalaya for court proceedings,” he said, making it clear that the legal process has only just begun and the truth, whatever it may be, will be determined through due process.

The case is now in the hands of a Special Investigation Team (SIT). They have been executing simultaneous raids across multiple states, chasing every lead, every name, and every whisper that may hold clues to the planning, execution, and cover-up of Raja’s murder.

One suspect is still at large, and until every thread is pulled, the line between innocence and guilt remains dangerously thin. Is Sonam a broken woman caught in a storm she didn’t start, or a cold mastermind who planned her husband’s murder with terrifying precision? The coming days may answer that question—or deepen the mystery further.

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