The family of an Indore-based woman who went missing in Meghalaya last month while honeymooning with her husband urged the Union government on Friday to hand over the case to the CBI after expressing dissatisfaction with the probe of the north eastern state's police.
Sonam Raghuvanshi (25) and her husband Raja Raghuvanshi (29) disappeared on May 23, hours after they checked out of a homestay at Nongriat village in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills district. Raja's body was found in a deep gorge near a waterfall in Sohra area, some 20 kilometres away from the homestay, on June 2.
Meghalaya police, which registered a murder case after Raja's body was found, are yet to get clues about Sonam's whereabouts.
"My daughter has been abducted and is still in the clutches of her captors. Meghalaya police is not investigating the matter properly. They have been negligent right from the beginning. I have been seeking the deployment of the army since the day they went missing. If it was done in time, they would have been found safely," Sonam's father, Devi Singh Raghuvanshi, told PTI.
He said the Centre must hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
With desperation setting in, Raghuvanshi said he had hung an inverted photograph of Sonam on the advice of an astrologer so that she can be found safely.
After their marriage here on May 11, the couple left for Meghalaya on May 20 for their honeymoon, family said.
The couple arrived at Mawlakhiat village on May 22 on a rented scooter. They parked their scooter and trekked 3,000 steps down the gorge to visit the famous living rootbridges at Nongriat village, where they stayed the night and left the homestay the following morning.
On May 24, their scooter was found abandoned at a cafe along the road from Shillong to Sohra.
A woman's white shirt, a strip of medicine, a part of the LCD screen of a mobile phone and a smartwatch were seized at the spot where Raja's body was found, as per Meghalaya police.
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