Honeymoon hit job in serene Sohra

The Hindu

18 hours ago

It is rare for the chieftain of a Hima, a Khasi tribal 'kingdom', to organise an event for a stranger. But then, it is rarer for a visitor to be killed in Hima Sohra, a part of Meghalaya's 351.99 square kilometre Sohra Civil Subdivision in the East Khasi Hills district. Sohra is the indigenous name for the British-corrupted Cherrapunji, often called the rain capital of the world and one of north-east India's most popular tourist destinations. It offers trekking trails, cascades, canyons, and caves.
Before sundown on June 10, Freeman Sing Syiem, the chief of Hima Sohra, organised a candlelight vigil and a 5-km peace rally for Indore businessman Raja Raghuvanshi, 29, who none in the area would have remembered had he not gone missing on May 23, only to be found dead in a deep gorge on June 2. On June 9, the Meghalaya police had arrested his wife and four others for his death.
At the centre of Sohra town, hundreds of Khasi men and women took turns to light candles in front of a poster of a smiling Raja, mourning his death and condemning the misinformation spread by a section of the media about the peaceful place being crime-prone. The turnout mattered in a town visitors throng during the peak, rain-drenched tourist season.
'Our people were dragged into a crime that could have happened anywhere. Our concern for tourists was evident when men from almost all villages in the Sohra area braved torrential rains and slippery conditions to search for the Indore honeymoon couple who went missing. The prayer service was a clear message from Sohra that they want justice for Raja, respect for Meghalaya, and accountability for those who jump to conclusions,' local MLA Gavin Miguel Mylliem, who attended the rally for Raja, says.
Almost at the same time as the candle flames flickered in the Meghalaya hill station, there was fire of a different kind in Indore, a city on Madhya Pradesh's Malwa plateau. Posters bearing the photos of Raja and his 24-year-old wife, Sonam Raghuvanshi, believed missing until she surrendered before the police in Uttar Pradesh, demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into her disappearance and her husband's death. Raja's relatives ripped out Sonam's pictures from some of these posters and set them on fire in an outburst of anger at a murder plotted at home and executed about 2,250 km away.
In Meghalaya, Anthony Thabah of Sohra's Mawsmai, known for a labyrinthine limestone cave and the Seven Sisters Waterfalls, was one of many who scouted the area for the missing couple. 'This incident happened more than two months after a foreigner (Hungarian Puskas Zsolt) died in a trekking accident,' he says.
'The news that Raja was a victim of a murderous conspiracy hatched by his wife and not one of our own came as a huge relief, but with a tinge of sadness. No mother should lose a son this way,' says his mother, Hehbok Thabah, who runs a snacks store at the Seven Sisters falls viewpoint.
Among those who lit a candle in Raja's memory was Sianti Sohkhlet, the owner of a homestay near the famed double-decker root bridge at Nongriat village. To pay homage to Raja, she trekked 3,000 steps uphill to Mawlakhait village and travelled another 12 km to the central part of Sohra, which was the British administrative headquarters for much of the present-day northeast from 1846 to 1866.
For more than a fortnight, she felt guilty that the Indore couple disappeared after checking out of her homestay on May 23, leaving a suitcase behind. The suitcase yielded a mangalsutra, which the Meghalaya police surmised was unusual for a newly married Indian woman not to keep on. It was as vital a clue to cracking the Raja murder case as Albert Pde, a tourist guide, recalling that he saw the couple ascending the steps from Nongriat to the Mawlakhiat parking lot, along with three others.
'I recognised them because I offered my service the previous evening after they parked their two-wheeler at Mawlakhiat, but they said they had already hired another guide. They declined to hire a guide the next morning, saying they knew their way back. I saw them climbing with three other men, conversing in Hindi, which I don't understand. By the time I reached Mawlakhiat, the two-wheeler was gone,' he says.
From guilt to anger
Deep within, Kennesingh Khongwar, the sirdar (chief) of Sohra's Mawsmai area, felt no local could have abducted the Indore couple and killed Raja. Yet, the 'what if' question rankled. 'Until the case took a turn with the arrests of five people, including the victim's wife, our people absorbed abuses from beyond Meghalaya and even pleas to the Prime Minister to intervene. A feeling of guilt slowly crept into the people, and they feared losing tourists because of the constant badmouthing,' he says.
Banrap Kharmalki, a transporter from the Saitsohpen area, says the disappearance of the Indore couple pinched for the first few days. 'The negative publicity about Sohra and Meghalaya began to show when tourists insisted on their drivers from Guwahati accompanying them on sightseeing trips,' he says. Most tourists reach Sohra by car from the airport or railway station in Assam's principal city, 140 km away.
Ashim Paul, a Guwahati-based tourist vehicle operator, says two of his clients cancelled their trip to Sohra after the police established Raja was murdered with a dao or machete. 'We were beginning to wonder if the incident would impact us like the terror attack did in Pahalgam,' he says. The Federation of Shillong Hotels says the occupancy rate dipped by 30% in the tourist spots, but landslides and floods that hit large swathes of the region in May could have been factors too.
Until the morning of June 9, when Sonam surrendered before the police in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur and four accomplices — her alleged lover Raj Singh Kushwaha, 21, Vishal Singh Chauhan, 22, Anand Kurmi, 23, and Akash Rajput, 19 — were arrested from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the Raghuvanshi family criticised the Meghalaya police for going slow on the case. Others slammed the State for not ensuring security for tourists and accused locals of being criminals. Raja's family apologised to the Meghalaya government for tarnishing its image later.
Indore mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava expressed regret over damage to Meghalaya's image and tourism due to the case. 'We are grateful that the Meghalaya police acted promptly and solved the murder case within a few days,' he said.
'When we heard about Sonam's role, humare pairon ke neechey se zameen khisak gayi (the ground slipped from under our feet),' says Sachin Raghuvanshi, Raja's elder brother. The youngest of three brothers, Raja hailed from a closely-knit family that lived and worked together. His father, Ashok Raghuvanshi, started a transport business about 30 years ago, which his elder sons, Vipin and Sachin, expanded. 'We got two extra hands when Raja joined our business after graduating from a private college in Indore. A fast learner, he was soon handling all our accounts,' Sachin says. 'Raja was pampered by everyone in the family. Our children did not call him uncle; they addressed him by his name and treated him like a friend,' he adds.
Sachin says Raja liked to keep fit, was a car enthusiast, loved shopping, travelling, and going to the movies. 'The children would tease him before his arranged marriage on May 11 by saying, 'Raja, ab toh teri shadi ho rahi hai, mazey hain tere (You will have fun now that you are getting married). The children are devastated now,' he says, breaking down.
He says the marriage was fixed through a community matrimonial, and a priest of Sonam's family fixed a wedding date for May, explaining there was no shubh muhurat (auspicious date) in the next 18 months. 'The hurried marriage was a mistake we will regret forever,' he adds.
Disputed waterfalls
Uma Devi, Raja's mother, says her son did not want to go to Sohra, and wanted to return home after offering prayers at Guwahati's Kamakhya temple. According to investigators in Indore, convincing Raja to visit the temple was part of the murder conspiracy, with Sonam promising to consummate their marriage after a darshan of the goddess. Vivek Syiem, the East Khasi Hills Superintendent of Police, says Sonam and the four men confessed to their roles in the murder. They were brought to Shillong, where a court sent them to eight days' police custody on June 11. They will be taken to Sohra to reconstruct the crime scene after the interrogation ends. 'Raj was the mastermind of the plot, and Sonam confessed to complicity. They had at least three backup plans before the marriage, including murdering a woman, putting her body on Sonam's scooter, and burning it to make it seem like she had died in an accident. The Sohra plot was hatched after these did not materialise,' he says.
The Meghalaya police found out that the trio of alleged killers — Vishal, Anand, and Akash — posed as tourists and checked into a Guwahati lodge on May 19, a day ahead of Raja and Sonam's arrival in Guwahati. The trio checked out of the lodge on May 20 morning, bought a machete in Guwahati, and headed for Sohra, say the police.
From Guwahati, Raja and Sonam checked into a guest house in Shillong on May 21. They rented a two-wheeler and reached Sohra, about 50 km away, the next afternoon. They checked into a homestay at Nongriat on the evening of May 22 and exited around 5.30 a.m. on May 23, say the police. Their two-wheeler was located the following day, abandoned at a half-constructed structure at Sohrarim, on the road to Shillong.
As news about the missing couple spread, local volunteers joined the police, State Disaster Response Force, other departments, and members of the West Jaintia Hills Adventure Sports and Mountaineering Association, to search for them.
After the weather cleared, a police drone located Raja's decomposed body in a ditch near the Weisawdong waterfalls on June 2. A woman's shirt, a blood-stained raincoat, a machete, and other items convinced the police that Raja had been murdered.
'It is possible that the killers studied the place, found out that the waterfalls had been closed to tourists because of a land dispute, and chose to commit the crime as the chances of being noticed were slim,' a local police officer says.
About 11 km off the road from Sohrarim, Weisawdong is 23 km from Nongriat via a shorter route along the Dainthlen falls. The local administration closed both of these falls two years ago after two villages, Laitduh and Umblai, claimed ownership of the area. Their residents have also sparred over parking spaces for tourist vehicles.
Lessons learnt
The Meghalaya police's interrogation revealed three bikes had been rented from Shillong, including the one Raja and Sonam used. The couple and Raja's assailants rode to an elevation near Weisawdong, and Sonam was present when the three pounced on Raja and one of them hit him on the head, say the police. The autopsy report says there were two cut marks on Raja's head. 'Sonam helped the accused killers carry the body to the edge of a gorge and throw it down,' Syiem, the SP, says. Raj's accomplices allegedly did it just to help him.
'The two-wheeler Sonam rode was abandoned at Sohrarim with the key on. After the murder, she went with the accused up to Mawkdok, and took a tourist cab to Guwahati. We have gathered CCTV evidence and will submit a watertight charge sheet,' he adds.
Indore's Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rajesh Dandotiya, says Sonam returned to Indore on May 25 and left for U.P.'s Varanasi in a taxi two days later. She then went to Ghazipur, where she was arrested. 'The role of all five accused is confirmed now. Our team will travel to Shillong and seek their remand for interrogation here. We will also take them to the apartment where she stayed after returning to Indore from Meghalaya,' he says. The others changed trains to reach Indore. Dandotiya ruled out the involvement of Sonam's family in Raja's murder.
Sonam's family, who initially denied her role in the murder and alleged that the Meghalaya police was trying to frame her, has now extended support to Raja's family and demanded strict punishment for Sonam and her accomplices. Amid chaotic and emotional scenes, Sonam's brother, Govind Raghuvanshi, turned up at Raja's home on Wednesday evening, the first time since his sister's role came to the fore. Govind hugged Raja's mother, the two weeping on each other's shoulders. 'They lost a son. Our family has broken ties with Sonam,' he said later.
At Sohra, to felicitate those involved in locating Raja's body and helping clear the blot on Meghalaya, Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh said the incident made the government learn a few lessons. He underscored the importance of installing CCTV at all tourist spots, making it mandatory for visitors to hire guides, and for locals to maintain records of all vehicles tourists use.
Many in Sohra say they have forgiven Raja's family and others for tarnishing their image, but they intend to take some media houses to court to reduce stereotyping of a region and its people. Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma summed up the sentiments: 'We understand it is a difficult time for the two families. More than an apology, I encourage people who spoke negatively about Meghalaya to visit and meet the people,' he said.
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Edited by Sunalini Mathew