Honeymoon murder: Raja Raghuvanshi's kin seeks narco test on Sonam, her lover to bare 'full truth'
The elder brother of Raja Raghuvanshi, an Indore-based transport businessman murdered during his honeymoon in Meghalaya, on Friday demanded a narco analysis test on prime accused Sonam and Raj Kushwaha to uncover the "entire truth" behind the sensational case.
Five people, including Raja Raghuvanshi's wife Sonam (25) and her alleged lover Kushwaha (20), have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the murder of Raja Raghuvanshi (29) in the north-eastern state last month.
All of them are currently in the Meghalaya police's custody and an SIT is probing the case. Sonam is accused of getting her husband killed during their honeymoon with the help of Kushwaha and three contract killers, a case which has sent shockwaves across the country.
"We want the Meghalaya police to conduct a narco test (also called truth serum test) on Sonam and Kushwaha so that the full truth behind my brother's murder comes out," Raja's elder brother Sachin Raghuvanshi told PTI in Indore.
Sachin Raghuvanshi said reports coming in about the duo's interrogation suggest they may be misleading investigators by blaming each other as the mastermind of the brutal killing. "It appears Sonam and Kushwaha are colluding to misdirect the probe," he claimed.
The duo could not have executed the murder conspiracy on their own, Sachin Raghuvanshi insisted. "I believe more people are involved in the conspiracy, but they are still out of police reach. Their names may surface through narco analysis," he contended.
During a narco analysis test, a drug, sodium pentothal, is injected into the body of the subject which takes him to a hypnotic state, and his imagination is neutralised, leading him to gives true information about an incident.
Calling for a thorough probe into the entire episode, he expressed suspicion that Sonam's family, particularly her mother, was aware of her alleged relationship with Kushwaha before marriage, but her wedding with Raja Raghuvanshi, which took place on May 11, went ahead under family pressure.
Sachin Raghuvanshi demanded that the case be tried in a fast-track court and that the culprits be handed "double life imprisonment".
"The conspiracy to eliminate Raja Raghuvanshi was hatched in Indore, shortly before his wedding with Sonam on May 11, and the mastermind is Raj Kushwaha while the woman had agreed to the plot," East Khasi Hills district Superintendent of Police Vivek Syiem said earlier.
A few days after the wedding, Raja and Sonam left for picturesque Sohra (also called Cherrapunjee) in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills district and went missing on May 23.
His body was found in a gorge near Weisawdong Falls on June 2, while a 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.
Besides Sonam and Kushwaha, police have arrested three suspected contract killers -- Vishal Singh Chauhan, Akash Rajput, and Anand Kurmi. "The three young people were friends, and one of them is a cousin of Raj. It was not a typical contract killing. Yes, the plan was to kill and they did it as a favour to their friend Raj," Syiem said.
Kushwaha had given them ₹50,000 to cover travel and other expenses, he said. The planning started in February in Indore and they had thought of ways about how Sonam would disappear after the killing of Raja, said the police officer.
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