In a dramatic twist, the wife, who had been missing since May 23 in Meghalaya, hired contract killers to murder her husband during their honeymoon trip, as she was having an affair, sources told India Today TV.

In the early hours of Monday, Raja Raghuvanshi's wife, Sonam, along with three hitmen, were arrested. While Sonam has been arrested in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur, the other three have been arrested in Indore, where the couple were from. Another accused is still at large, as per sources.

Confirming the motive, Meghalaya's Deputy Inspector General of Police, Davis Marak, told India Today TV that it was a cold-blooded murder, adding that the trip was planned to kill Raja. The senior police official also said that, after a preliminary probe, an extramarital affair appears to be the primary motive.

According to police sources, the breakthrough came between 3 and 4 am, when Sonam reached near a roadside eatery in Nandganj, Ghazipur and made a video call to her brother, using the eatery owner's number.

After she informed him about her whereabouts, her brother promptly informed the Indore Police, who then contacted their counterparts in Ghazipur.

Meanwhile, the eatery owner also dialed police emergency number, 112. The team rushed to the spot and took Sonam to a One-Stop Centre.

Last week, India Today TV accessed CCTV footage from May 22, a day before the couple went missing, where both husband and wife were found interacting normally with each other in Shillong before parking their luggage in a homestay and riding away on a scootie, which was later found abandoned.

Incidentally, the wife's white shirt in the CCTV footage was lying next to the 29-year-old Raja's body, which was discovered deep inside a gorge in the Cherrapunji area on June 2, 20 kilometres from their homestay in Shillong.

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