The Meghalaya Police has redeemed the image and reputation of the State by zeroing in on the key suspects surrounding the Raja Raghuvanshi murder case. This case of a honeymoon gone completely awry and which many refer to as resembling a scene straight out of a Crime Patrol television series is something Meghalaya could have done without. The gory incident has put a lot of strain on the scarce resources of the state and the fact that the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) had to be requisitioned in addition to the state’s own disaster relief team means a lot has been invested to first find the missing couple and when the husband was found murdered, the wife was missing from May 23 up to the wee hours of June 9 and that in distant Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi- Ghazipur main road.
It has taken my strenuous and dangerous hours of searching first for Raja Raghuvanshi and after his dead body was found then the search began for his wife Sonam. Apart from the Meghalaya Police, the NDRF and SDRF what must never be forgotten is the effort and empathy shown by the West Jaintia Hills District Mountaineering Club led by Sambor Surong. This dangerous expedition that only those who rappelled and did all kinds of stunts to reach the deep gorges of the Sohra region at great risk to their lives and limbs. shows the level of commitment of individuals and groups in Meghalaya to look for a missing tourist. It is jarring therefore to listen to the insensitive statements of Sonam Raghuvanshi’s father who keep making trite comments and blaming Meghalaya’s Chief Minister and the Meghalaya Police. The question to this man is -how is he so sure about the character of his daughter and her silence from May 23 when until Raja Raghuvanshi’s body was found on June 2. If Sonam could ask a dhaba wallah for his phone to call her family members, why could she not have done it earlier? And if as she claims she was actually kidnapped then by now the names of the kidnappers should have surfaced. As of now Soman is the prime suspect since it was she who last saw her husband alive. The love triangle that has surfaced has made things murkier.
But to get back to the West Jaintia Hills District Mountaineering Club, their effort in trying to find Sonam Raghuvanshi amidst the inclement weather complete with deep fog along the canyons only added to their misery as they had no spotlights and no safety nets and only the deep gorge several hundred feet below them for company. After all this, it is heartless of people to paint such a grim picture of Meghalaya as if the police sat on their haunches and did not try hard enough. What’s worse is the attempt by family members of the deceased to politicise the issue by claiming that they want a CBI enquiry and that they are writing to the Union Home Minister and Prime Minister. In all of this sordid drama, the spirit of voluntarism of the West Jaintia Hills Mountaineering Club should always remain in public memory.
