LUCKNOW/VARANASI: A cold trail pinged back to life just past midnight Monday when a visibly disoriented woman in a black T-shirt walked up to a highway dhaba in eastern UP and asked to make a call.It was around 1am. The rush at Kashi Dhaba on Varanasi-Ghazipur highway had thinned. Owner Sahil Yadav was catching a breather when the woman, exhausted and shaking, sat outside in silence. Then she asked for a phone.“She requested a woman sitting with her father and two children to make a call. When the woman refused to give her phone, she approached the counter and requested me,” Sahil said. “She dialled a number and broke down the moment the person on the other side picked up. She said she was at a dhaba. Even after the call, she kept crying.”
That call, to her brother in Indore, set off a chain reaction across three states. By dawn, Sonam Raghuvanshi — missing for over two weeks after her husband was found dead in a Meghalaya gorge — was in custody.Sonam, 24, had vanished on May 23 while on honeymoon. Her husband Raja Raghuvanshi was found dead on June 2. Police alleged she conspired with her lover to kill him. She had been off the radar. Then came the call — and a highway dhaba in Ghazipur became the tipping point. Surveillance teams had been tracking digital footprints. Around 2am Monday, Sonam’s phone lit up surveillance grids in Indore and Shillong. Inputs from that 22-minute window led to a rapid triangulation. UP police received location pings, and a unit was mobilised.“Once Sonam contacted her brother, we were informed by Indore police,” said ADG Amitabh Yash. “Precise location inputs were shared. She was intercepted in Ghazipur.”Unknown to Sonam, cyber sleuths were watching. Her voice, number, GPS — all matched. The final visual ID came from UP police officers who shared photos and video with Indore and Meghalaya cops for confirmation.Dhaba owner Sahil had also alerted police via the 112 emergency line. “She wouldn’t say much,” Sahil said. “She looked like she hadn’t slept for days.” His woman relatives offered her tea and biscuits. She refused food, asked only for rest. Police found her mute, spent, unresponsive beyond stating her name. She was taken to a One Stop Centre in Ghazipur — a govt support shelter for abused or vulnerable women. Investigators alleged the phone call was her undoing. A cyber team from Indore had been on standby, working with a deputy SP from Meghalaya and a dedicated surveillance unit. The Meghalaya SIT probing Raja’s death had asked them to track any digital reappearance.
