Indore/Shillong, June 11 -- His sister had "100 per cent" killed her husband, Sonam Raghuvanshi's brother Govind said on Wednesday as the young woman and four men accused in the sensational "honeymoon murder" of 29-year-old Raja Raghuvanshi were sent to eight-day police custody in Shillong.
Convinced of his sister's guilt, Govind Raghuvanshi also said his family had snapped ties with her and vowed
to fight a legal battle to get justice for Raja Raghuvanshi's family.
Wednesday marks one month to the day Sonam and Raja Raghuvanshi got married. The Indore couple went to Meghalaya for their honeymoon and went missing soon after.
Raja's blood stained body was found 10 days later in a deep gorge and Sonam was presumed missing till June 9, when she was nabbed from a dhaba hundreds of miles away in Uttar Pradesh.
A court in Shillong sent Sonam and her four aides to eight-day police custody. "Police sought a 10-day remand. The court granted 8 days of police custody," East Khasi Hills district SP Vivek Syiem told the news agency.
The 24-year-old woman was arrested from Ghazipur, while her aides were apprehended from Indore for their alleged role in conspiring and killing Raja.
The special investigation team sought police custody of the accused to reconstruct the crime scene in Sohra, the officer said.
Investigators said Sonam told Raja Raghuvanshi that she would let him consummate the marriage only after making an offering at the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati.
Accordingly, Raja planned their trip to Guwahati and adjacent Meghalaya, while his wife and her boyfriend allegedly plotted to kill him in the jungles of the north-eastern state, they said.
"Sonam convinced 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 the news agency.
Sonam and Raja got married in Indore on May 11 and arrived in
Meghalaya via Guwahati on May 20.
Both went missing on May 23 in Sohra in East Khasi Hills district, hours after checking out of a homestay at Nongriat village.
Raja's body was found in a gorge near Weisawdong Falls on June 2. A search continued for Sonam, who emerged in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur, around 1,200 km away, in the early hours of June 9 and surrendered as police arrested her boyfriend Raj Kushwaha and the three contract killers hired by them to murder Raja.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.