‘It was murder’: Police find dao in Weisawdong gorge case

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJune 3, 2025

In a breakthrough, the state police on Tuesday recovered a ‘dao’ used for murdering of Raja Raghuvanshi, whose body was recovered from a deep gorge at Weisawdong falls after he and his wife went missing while on a honeymoon to Sohra.

“We have a recovered a dao. It’s a new dao and it was just used for this purpose only,” East Khasi Hills district chief police Vivek Syiem told reporters.

Stating it is a clear ‘case of homicide’, he said, “The person (Raja) has been murdered, there is no question about it and we have registered a case also for murder and for destruction of evidence. There is no doubt it was a murder. We have find out what is the motive behind it.” 

The district police chief said the case is being taken as top most priority and a special investigation team (SIT) headed by SP (City) Herbert Kharkongor is on the job to investigage the case.

Kharkongor will be assisted by four deputy superintendents of police (DSPs) – DSP (crime), DSP (city), DSP (operations) and SDPO Sohra – besides two sub-inspectors. 

Asked, Syiem said police are still waiting for the report of the post mortem examination to ascertain whether Raja died before being thrown or after being thrown down the deep gorge. 

“We can’t say whether he was killed or he was thrown but yes once we get the post mortem report, then we can ascertain from the kind of injury, whether the injury is fatal for him to have died before being thrown or whether he was alive and being thrown, we will know from the post mortem that he was thrown because he died out of the fall.”

Further, the SP said, “We can’t ruled out all possibilities so let the facts come in and yes weapon was used to murder whether the motive was for robbery, for vendatta or whether there is any form of hatred or any issue in between the accused and the victims, we need to find that out. We need to look for more evidence and only then we can come to conclusion otherwise at this juncture it is premature to say.”

Meanwhile, Syiem informed that wife of the deceased victim Sonam is yet to be found and search and rescue operation will continue. 

“Tomorrow, we will resume again our search in the adjoining area as the gorge extends quite a distance from there, so we will be looking for those areas, which are about 1 or 2 kms from that place,”he said.

The search operation carried out by teams from the NDRF, SDRF, and Special Operations Team will now be focused on the lowest of the gorge’s three tiers  .

The couple from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, who arrived in Nongriat on May 22, were last seen on May 23 after checking out of Shipara Homestay with a local guide. Their scooty, later found abandoned at Sohrarim on May 24, triggered the intensive search.

Family of the couple have demanded for CBI probe into the case.