Owner Of Flat Where Sonam Raghuvanshi, Killers Lived Suspected Of Hiding Evidence

The owner of a flat in Indore where murder-accused Sonam Raghuvanshi and her aides lived after killing her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi, and was under the scanner of the Meghalaya police for concealing evidence, has been caught. Lokendra Tomar, an infrastructure company owner and a resident of  Madhya Pradesh, was caught from Gwalior  by the state police after a request from their Meghalaya counterparts.

Tomar was caught from Gwalior  by the state police after a request from their Meghalaya counterparts. Police sources said he had left Madhya Pradesh on June 16 for Uttarakhand, from where he proceeded to Gwalior on June 22. 

Police soures said Tomar allegedly tried to destroy evidence that Sonam Raghuvanshi and her hired hit men had lived in his flat. He allegedly took a bag that Sonam had left behind and tried to destroy it and it contents. The bag allegedly contained a country-made pistol, her phone, Raja's jewellery, and Rs five lakh cash from the house in Indore's Hirabagh locality, police sources believe.

Tomar had emerged as a suspect while the police were questioning Silome James, the property dealer from Indore who rented the flat to the murder accused.

According to James, Tomar had asked him to remove Sonam's bag from the flat shortly after she surrendered to the police. When he did not, the flat owner took charge. Police sources said Tomar also tried to get the CCTV footage of the car showroom near his flat, to obliterate further evidence.

What is known about Sonam's bag

According to the Meghalaya Special Investigation Team, Silome James had helped one of the three hitmen, Vishal Singh Chauhan, rent a flat in Indore's Hirabagh locality.

Sonam Raghuvanshi is also believed to have stayed in the flat between May 26 and June 8, before she surrendered to the police. 
During her interrogation, Sonam said she left a black bag in the flat on June 8 and left for Ghazipur. The bag contained her phone, her husband's jewellery, Rs 5 lakh in cash, and a country-made pistol. But the police did not find anything when they raided the house.

Preliminary investigation had revealed that two days after Sonam surrendered, James and the building's security guard, Balveer, went to the flat and removed the bag and other evidence items. They allegedly set the bag on fire and destroyed it. The security guard was given Rs 5,000 to hide the evidence - following which he helped conceal it and escaped to his home in Ashok Nagar. James also took Sonam's laptop, which was allegedly thrown away by his wife.

The two were allegedly caught concealing the evidence in one of the CCTV cameras collected by the Meghalaya SIT. They were subsequently arrested.

The Honeymoon Murder Case

Raja and Sonam got married on May 11. Nine days later, they left for their honeymoon in Meghalaya on May 20 - with a one-way ticket in hand. The couple roamed around in the northeast for three days before they went "missing". Unable to reach them, their families had turned to the police.

What initially started as a probe to find the couple, turned into a murder investigation when Raja's body was found in a gorge on June 2 -- ten days after the brutal crime. 

The preliminary autopsy report revealed that he was attacked twice - once on the back and once on the front of his head. 

On the night of June 7, Sonam was found in an unconscious state at a 'dhaba' in Ghazipur. She was taken to the Ghazipur Medical College for treatment, where she surrendered before the police. The remaining three killers were also subsequently arrested.

Preliminary investigation revealed that during their honeymoon, Sonam and Raja carried four phones (three of which belonged to Sonam). After the three hitmen killed her husband, Sonam broke his phone and threw away the damaged device, the police said.

The other three mobile phones that belonged to Sonam are still missing, and the police are searching for them.