Meerut Blue Drum, Meghalaya Honeymoon, Lohagad Fort: India’s Most Shocking Partner Murders

Last Updated:June 24, 2026, 09:40 IST

A fiancee’s Instagram grief post, a honeymoon that ended in a gorge, a drum sealed with cement. Six cases. One terrifying pattern. India’s partner murder wave, explained.

The Lohagad case has gripped the country, but it is far from the first.

She posted an emotional farewell on Instagram. She wept publicly. She asked why he had “left” her. But police say Siya Goyal did not lose her fiance, Vishal Agarwal’s Sticky Riceto fate or misfortune on June 18 at Lohagad Fort in Maharashtra. Investigators allege she and her secret lover pushed him 400 feet into a gorge and staged it to look like a slip on a windy afternoon. Ketan, 26, a Pune-based real estate director with a palace wedding booked in Udaipur, never made it to November.

The Lohagad case has gripped the country, but it is far from the first. Across India, a disturbing pattern has emerged in recent years: a hidden affair, a partner seen as an obstacle, a murder dressed up as an accident — and an arrest that unravels it all. From Meghalaya’s waterfalls to a Mumbai-area drain, here are the cases that shocked the nation.

Lohagad Fort, Pune, June 2026: Pushed Off A Heritage Hill

Police allege He is Goyal conspired with her friend Chetan Chaudhary to push her fiance off the fort and pass his death off as an accidental fall.

According to Ketan’s father, Chaudhary arrived at Lohagad on a two-wheeler, the two went up together, struck Ketan with an object, and threw him off.

After his death became public, Siya posted a tearful Instagram story: “You left me on my birthday. You left when we were so close to getting married.” A screenshot of that post is now part of the evidence file.

Both have been arrested and charged with murder and criminal conspiracy under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Mumbra-Vasai, Maharashtra, April 2026: Blue Drum, Mumbai’s Own Echo

Nurse Mehjabin Sheikh and her brother Tariq allegedly lured her partner Arbaz Khan, a 24-year-old civil engineer, to a secluded spot in Vasai under the pretext of recovering a loan. The two tied his hands and legs and beat him to death with PVC pipes. His body was stuffed in a blue drum and thrown into a drain.

Khan was reported missing on April 3 after he left for Dadar to collect a work payment; his decomposed body turned up two days later near Virar Phata along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway. Call records and phone location data led police to Mehjabin. She and Tariq were arrested on May 7. Reports stated that her husband and another associate remained absconding.

Meghalaya Honeymoon, May 2025: A Gorge, A Ghost, A Contract

Raja Raghuvanshi, 29, and his wife Sonam25, from Indore, went missing on May 23, 2025, hours after checking out of a homestay near Cherrapunji’s famous double-decker root bridge. On June 2, Raja’s decomposed body was found at the base of a gorge beneath Wei Sawdong Falls. What followed shocked India.

Meghalaya Police arrested Sonam on June 9 on charges of conspiracy to murder, alleging she had hired three contract killers — one of whom was her lover — to eliminate her husband during the trip. Sonam was found hiding in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, over two weeks after the disappearance.

Meerut, UP, March 2025: The Drum That Started It All

Muskan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla allegedly drugged and then stabbed Saurabh Rajput, a former merchant navy officer, at their Indiranagar home on the night of March 4.

They dismembered his body — severing his head and hands — stuffed the parts into a blue drum filled with cement, and fled to Himachal Pradesh.

Muskan had reportedly bought knives ahead of Saurabh’s return from London and procured sedatives, with police believing the murder had been in planning since November 2023.

In one of the case’s most chilling details, the couple’s six-year-old daughter had apparently told family members: “Papa is in the drum.” Both were arrested on March 18. Muskan later gave birth in jail.

Meerut, UP, April 2025: The Snake In The Bedroom

A month after the blue drum case rattled Meerut, the city was at the centre of another killing. Ravita allegedly conspired with her lover Amardeep to strangle her husband Amit Kashyap in his sleep, then placed a live snake under the body to fake a snakebite death. Amardeep had bought the snake for Rs 1,000 from a local snake charmer.

A postmortem report ended the ruse: no venom, no bite marks — only evidence of strangulation. Both were arrested. The snake charmer who supplied the reptile also came under investigation for illegal wildlife trade.

Rajasthan, August 2025: Sealed In Salt, Hidden On A Rooftop

In Khairthal-Tijara district, Laxmi Devi and her lover Jitendra Sharma — the son of the couple’s landlord — were arrested for murdering her husband Hansram, whose body was discovered stuffed inside a blue plastic drum on the roof of their rented accommodation.

Police said the two plotted the murder to conceal their affair; Hansram was killed on the night of August 15. The body had been packed in salt to speed up decomposition. The couple fled with their three children before being traced to a brick kiln in Alwar district.

Six Cases At A Glance

About the Author

Sumedha Kirti

Sumedha Kirti is a Chief Sub Editor with over eight years of experience — both at the desk and reporting. She is a graduate from Delhi University’s Miranda House. Kirti has previously worked with news…Read More

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