INDORE/LUCKNOW: Madhya Pradesh police claimed Tuesday Sonam Raghuvanshi had returned to Indore days after her husband’s murder in Meghalaya, met her alleged lover in a rented room, and plotted her next move before resurfacing 2,000km away – dazed and dishevelled at a dhaba in eastern UP.Also read: Sonam paid Rs 50k for killers’ travel; 2 accused have confessed, say policeSonam, 24, had vanished on May 23 near Wei Sawdong Falls in East Khasi Hills, where she and her husband Raja Raghuvanshi, 28, had travelled on a sudden honeymoon. On June 2, Raja’s body was found in a gorge near the falls’ parking lot. She remained missing. Her reappearance in Ghazipur on June 9 deepened the mystery. Indore police said she was never abducted as she claimed. “We have information that Sonam reached Indore between May 25 and May 27 by train and stayed in a rented room in Dewas Gate,” additional DCP (Crime Branch) Rajesh Dandotiya said. “Raj Kushwaha, her co-accused, met her there. He later arranged a taxi to UP.”Sonam trying to mislead sleuths: UP police officialPolice didn’t explain why she was sent to Uttar Pradesh. CCTV footage is being examined to track her route, which investigators said was deliberately confusing. Railway records show she may have taken a train from Guwahati to Patna after May 23-24, dodging flight records and misleading police.A senior UP officer said: “We have CCTV footage of her getting off a Guwahati-Patna train. The route was chosen to misguide investigators.”The 15-day gap between Raja’s death and Sonam’s arrest is being described by police as a calculated effort to fabricate a tale of trauma-induced amnesia. At the Ghazipur One-Stop Centre, a govt support shelter, she reportedly slept for seven of her 15 hours there, avoided doctors and police, and repeated: “Mujhe kuch yaad nahi hai (I don’t remember anything).”Her appearance — swollen face, messy hair, quiet demeanour — baffled the staff. “She looked nothing like a bride. No grief, no mention of husband. Just fatigue and sleepiness,” said a woman officer.According to Indore police, the murder conspiracy was hatched on May 17, six days after the wedding and three days before the trip. Sonam had returned to her parental home on May 15, and reconnected with Raj on another SIM. They spoke for hours on May 16. The next day, Raj allegedly met three childhood friends — Akash Rajput, Vishal Singh Chauhan, and Anand Kurmi — at a restaurant in Indore’s Super Corridor, where the killing was planned.The trio left Indore on a train to Guwahati via New Delhi, reached Shillong on May 21, and allegedly shadowed the couple using a rental car. Sonam sent live locations, lured Raja to isolated spots for photos, and waited for the right moment, police alleged.“They tried to push him off a cliff in a forest first, but it didn’t work out,” said an officer in Indore. “Instead, the attackers used a machete bought in Guwahati and hacked Raja to death in a remote area, as Sonam watched.”Sonam’s phone records and messages to Raj contradict her claims of memory loss and captivity, UP police said. Her silence under questioning, indifferent behaviour, and elaborate route back to UP point to a calculated escape rather than trauma, investigators added.
