Meghalaya Police has revealed that Sonam Raghuvanshi, who allegedly orchestrated the murder of her husband Raja Raghuvanshi during their honeymoon in Meghalaya, paid around Rs 20 lakh to contract killers for the murder. 

According to the Meghalaya Police, she initially handed over Rs 15,000 in cash to the assailants, as reported by Hindustan Times. 

“Raj Kushwaha claims he didn’t want to support Sonam and at the last moment, cancelled his plan to go to Meghalaya. He also allegedly asked the three others not to go, but they went to see Meghalaya after Sonam booked the tickets. Even at the last moment, the three refused to kill, but Sonam insisted and said she would give Rs 15 lakh for that. Police are verifying these claims,”  Hindustan Times quoted a senior police officer from Indore, who is working with the Meghalaya police on the investigation, as saying. 

According to the police, Raja Raghuvanshi, a 29-year-old owner of a transport business based in Indore, was murdered during his honeymoon in Meghalaya on May 23, 2025. Police have accused Sonam of orchestrating the murder alongside her alleged lover, Raj Kushwah and three contract killers. 

Raja’s body was found on June 2 in a gorge at Sohra near Cherrapunji in Meghalaya. Sonam Raghuvanshi was later found near a dhaba on the Varanasi-Ghazipur main road.

Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said that some of the accused have already confessed to the crime and that Sonam, the wife, is also “fully involved.”

“All the accused have been arrested from different places – one in Madhya Pradesh, the other in UP. An SIT of Meghalaya Police went down to these two places. Some of them have also confessed to the crime they committed. The moment we were able to pick Sonam, being the prime suspect in the killing, we all came to know that she is fully involved in this operation during their stay here in Meghalaya,” ANI quoted Tynsong as saying.