Pune:
On June 18, when Ketan Agarwal was pushed off Lohagad Fort in Pune allegedly by his fiancee, Siya Goyal, and her boyfriend, Chetan Chaudhary, there was someone who watched the murder unfold. An eyewitness, whose identity remains undisclosed, has claimed that they saw Ketan being pushed into the gorge from Lohagad Fort. The eyewitness was allegedly threatened with a similar fate.
Terrified, the eyewitness recorded their statement five days after the Pune Fort murder. After seeing media reports, the eyewitness contacted the police and recorded their statement.
The witness claims that at the fort, Siya gestured towards Chetan who then kicked Ketan on the leg, causing him to fall.
“Keep quiet, or I’ll throw you down from the fort too,” the eyewitness was told by Chetan.
In their statement, the eyewitness mentioned that despite the scorching heat, Chetan was wearing a hoodie, which made him easy to remember. While climbing the fort, another person had even asked Chetan, “Why are you wearing a hoodie in such heat?”
The police are now cross-verifying the eyewitness’s statement with other available evidence.
Chats, Call Records Under Probe
The police have secured substantial technical evidence including 12 TB of data, six mobile phones, nine pen drives, backups, and call records. The police are also conducting a forensic analysis of social media activities and deleted chats. According to police sources, some of the deleted data has been successfully recovered.
The investigation has revealed that research was done on ways to permanently delete data and chats from an iPhone. Additionally, the investigation has found that Siya had destroyed another mobile phone, which she had kept hidden in the house.
According to police sources, crucial information and evidence have been recovered from the broken mobile phone’s backup.
Currently, the police are piecing together the sequence of events by correlating technical evidence, call records, social media chats, and the eyewitness’s statement.
3 People Arrested So Far
The police have arrested three people – Siya, Chetan and Chetan’s friend, Ritesh Hange – in the murder of Ketan Agarwal. Ritesh was allegedly involved in planning Ketan’s murder.
Ketan (25) and Siya (20) were set to marry in November. They had gone trekking to Lohagad Fort on June 18 when the murder happened. At 10:45 am, Siya called her fiance’s mother, claiming that he had accidentally fallen into a gorge at Lohagad Fort. Locals and the police found him in the gorge and took him to a hospital, where doctors declared him dead.
Initially, police registered a case of accidental death. But Ketan’s sister continued to doubt Siya’s narrative and questioned her. Following this, a fresh probe was launched.
Before this, Ketan and Siya had gone trekking to Lohagad Fort on May 31 and June 14.
(With inputs from Yashpal Sonkamble)
