"Operation Honeymoon" Spreads Beyond Meghalaya Border, Focus On Guwahati

The operation -- code named Operation Honeymoon -- to unearth the missing links of the horrific "Honeymoon murder" continues with the Meghalaya police likely to raid more areas outside the state where the digital footprints of the accused are to be found. Sources in the Special Investigation Team said the idea is to find missing links in this case.

Today, Meghalaya police with help of colleagues in Assam, raided a lodge in Pan Bazar locality of Guwahati, where the three alleged contract killers had stayed for a night while on their way to Shillong to kill Raja Raghuvanshi. 

According to Guwahati police sources, the three suspects had arrived at Ananda Lodge of Pan Bazar around 8.30 pm on May 19. The Meghalaya police searched the room they stayed in and recorded the statements of the lodge manager and staff who claimed the behaviour of the three was like any other boarders and they did not find anything suspicious. 

The men had supplied their Aadhar card as identity record at the lodge, police sources added. 

The men claimed they were students from Indore and were visiting Assam and other parts of northeast. They checked out early on next day - around 5:30 am, sources said. 

Meghalaya SIT feels that on May 20, the men had tailed the couple at Guwahati's Kamakhya Temple. 

The SIT had also found out that the men had bought the murder weapon- a new machete - from a flea market in Guwahati, like Fancy Bazar or Paltan Bazar area, not far from the lodge they stayed.

Guwahati police sources added that the Meghalaya SIT is also analyzing CCTV footage of certain areas of the city where they found digital footprints of the accused. Search is on for the vendor from whom the machete was purchased.

The police have arrested Sonam Raghuvanshi and four others for the murder of Raja Raghuvanshi from Indore. On Wednesday, they were produced in a court in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, from where they were sent to police custody for eight days.

The police have said that Sonam, who was in a relationship with her employee Raj Kushwaha, had decided to kill her husband after being forced into the marriage by her family. 

The murder, which took place on May 23, was masterminded by Raj Kushwaha, who hired three of his friends as hitmen. All four of them have been arrested.