Trial begins in Raja Raghuvanshi murder case, prosecution witnesses to be examined
Shillong court to begin trial, with five accused, including Raghuvanshi’s wife and her alleged paramour, facing charges under multiple sections of the BNS.
A file image of Sonam and Raja Raghuvanshi.
Shillong, Nov 11: The trial for the sensational Raja Raghuvanshi murder case, which took place almost five months back, will begin at the Session Court here with the examination of the prosecution witnesses on Tuesday.
The Special Public Prosecutor for this case, KC Gautam, said after the charges have been framed against the accused persons under various sections of the BNS, the prosecution witnesses would be examined before the court on Tuesday.
There are five main accused persons in this case.
Raghuvanshi, the wife of Raja, her alleged paramour Raj Kushwaha and the others Akash Singh Rajput, Vishal Singh Chauhan and Anand Kurmi, who allegedly attacked Raja.
"The charges were read out to the accused persons and they have pleaded not guilty to those charges," Gautam said.
Earlier, the Meghalaya police filed a 790-page chargesheet against these accused persons on September 6 before the Judicial Magistrate First Class at Sohra framing charges against the accused persons under various sections of the BNS.
These sections broadly include section 103 (1) for murder, section 238 (a) for destruction or concealment of evidence and section 61 (2) for criminal conspiracy against the accused persons.
The police are yet to file a supplementary chargesheet against some other persons allegedly involved in this case. These persons include Silome James, a property dealer in Madhya Pradesh; Lokendra Singh Tomar, land lord of the building in MP where Sonam allegedly took refuge after committing the crime; and Balbir Ahirbar, the security guard of the apartment.
The victim Raja was allegedly murdered at Sohra near the Wei Sawdong falls. He was last seen alive at Sohra with his wife on a honeymoon trip on May 23. After that Raja and his wife went missing. Raja's decomposed body was recovered from a deep gorge on June 2 after an intensive search of the area conducted by the Meghalaya police, NDRF-SDRF teams and the local villagers.
However, Sonam's whereabouts was not known and search for her continued in the area, until she mysteriously resurfaced on June 9 at Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh. The others were arrested subsequently from MP with the coordination between Meghalaya and MP police.